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A  UTHOR: 


TZGEN,  JOSEPH 


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Dietzgen,  Joseph,  1828-1888. 

The  i)ositive  outcome  of  pliilosopliy.  TIio  iintiire  of 
human  brain  work.  Letters  on  logic*  Tlie  ])ositive  out- 
come of  philosophy.  J5y  Joso])li  Dietzgen.  Tr.  bv  Ernest 
Untermann,  with  an  introduction  l)y  Dr.  Anton  Panne- 
koek  tr.  by  J^]rnest  Cnternumn.  Ed.'by  Eugene  Dietzgen 
and  Josepli  Dietzgen,  jr.  Chicago,  C.  H.  Kerr  &  com- 
pany, 190G. 

.1  p.  1.,  ivi-vi,  7^m  p.     20^'".     (0;i  cover:  International  library  of  social 
science) 

I  UiUcrinann,  Ernest,  tr.  ii.  Dietzgen,  Eugene,  ed.  in.  Dietzgen.  Jo- 
seph, jr.,  joint  ed.  ~"  - —    ^     '  -^ 


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11 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME 
OF  PHILOSOPHY 


The  Nature  of  Human  Brain  Work 

Letters  on  Logic.    The  Positive 

Outcome  of  Philosophy 


BT 


JOSEPH    DIETZGEN 


*  * 


TRANSLATED  BY   ERNEST   UNTERMANW 


*    <. 


WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION   BY   DR.    ANTON   PANNKKOEK 
TRANSLATED   BY  ERNEST  UNTERMANN 


EdITKD  by  EUQBNl  DllTZQEN  AND  JoiEPH  DlBTZ«lK,  Jb. 


\    % 


CHICAGO 
CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 

1906 


m^  / 


•^k?' 


OS 


copykight  1006 
By  Eugene  Dietzgen 


80 


S 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction  by  Anton  Pannekoek 7 

The  Nature  of  Human  Brain  Work 

Preface  41 

I.  Introduction  47 

II.  Pure  Reason  or  tlie  Faculty  of  Thought  in  General...     61 

III.  The  Nature  of  Things 80 

IV.  The  Practice  of  Reason  in  Physical  Science 104 

a  Cause  and  Effect iQg 

6  Matter  and  Mind 119 

c  Force   and   Matter yi\ 

V.  "Practical  Reason"  or  Morality 133 

a  The  Wise  and  Reasonable 133 

6  Morality  and  Right 143 

c  The  Holy  156 

Letters  on  Logic 

First  Letter  i^y 

Second  Letter  jgj 

Third  Letter  jgg 

Fourth  Letter  ym 

Fifth   Letter   j^g 

Sixth  Letter  205 

Seventh  Letter  91.7 

Eighth  Letter  yyvj 

Ninth    Letter    225 

Tenth  Letter  230 

Eleventh  Letter  236 

Twelfth   Lettsr  '         242 

Thirteenth    Letter   248 

Fourteenth  Letter  255 

Fifteenth    Letter    26O 

Sixteenth    Letter    ^ 265 

Seventeenth   Letter   271 

Eighteenth   Letter   277 


403857 


VI 


CO>'TE>'TS 


Letters  on  Logic  page 

Nineteenth   Letter   283 

Twentieth  Letter  289 

Twenty-first  Letter  296 

Twenty-second  Letter   301 

Twenty-third  Letter    (a) 307 

Twenty-third  Letter    (b) 312 

Twenty-fourth  Letter   318 

The  Positive  Outcome  of  Philosophy 

Preface  327 

I.  Positive  Knowledge  as  a  Special  Object 333 

II.  The  Power  of  Perception  Is  Kin  to  the  Universe 337 

III.  As  to  How  the  Intellect  Is  Limited  and  Unlimited....  342 
rV.  The  Universality  of  Nature 348 

V.  The  Understanding  as  a  Part  of  the  Human  Soul 354 

VI.  Consciousness  Is  Endowed  With  the  Faculty  of  Know- 
ing as  Well  as  With  the  Feeling  of  the  Universality 

of  All  Nature 303 

VII.  The  Relationship  or  Identity  of  Spirit  and  Nature....  3()9 

VIII.  Understanding  Is  Material 370 

IX.  The  Four  Principles  of  Logic 381 

X.  The  Function  of  Understanding  on  the  Religious  Field  393 

XI.  The  Distinction  Between  Cause  and  Effect  Is  only 
One  of  the  Means  to  Facilitate  Understanding 401 

XII.  Mind  and  Matter:  Which  Is  Primary,  Which  Is 
Secondary?    409 

XIII.  The  Extent  to  Which  the  Doubts  of  the  Possibility 
of  Clear  and  Accurate  Understanding  Have  Been 
Overcome   418 

XIV.  Continuation  of  the  Discussion  on  the  Difference 
Between  Doubtful  and  Evident  Understanding 428 

XV.  Conclusion   436 


INTRODUCTION 


THE  POSITION  AND  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  J. 
DIETZGEN'S  PHILOSOPHICAL  WORKS 

BY 

Dr.  Anton  Pannekoek 


In  the  history  of  philosophy  we  see  before  us  the 
consecutive  forms  of  the  thoughts  of  the  ruHng  classes 
of  society  on  life  and  on  the  world  at  large.  This  class 
thought  appears  after  the  primitive  communism  has 
given  way  to  a  society  with  class  antagonisms,  at  a  stage 
when  the  wealth  of  the  members  of  the  ruling  class  gave 
them  leisure  time  and  thus  stimulated  them  to  turn  their 
attention  to  the  productions  of  the  mind.  The  beginning 
of  this  thought  is  found  in  classic  Greece.  But  it  assumed 
its  clearest  and  best  developed  form  when  the  modern 
bourgeoisie  had  become  the  ruling  class  in  capitalistic 
Europe  and  the  thinkers  gave  expression  to  the  ideas  of 
this  class.  The  characteristic  mark  of  these  ideas  is  dual- 
ism, that  is  to  sav  the  misunderstood  contrast  between 
thinking  and  being,  between  nature  and  spirit,  the  result 
of  the  mental  unclearness  of  this  class  and  of  its  inca- 
pacity to  see  the  things  of  the  world  in  their  true  inter- 
connection. This  mental  state  is  but  the  expression  of  the 
division  of  mankind  into  classes  and  of  the  uncomprc- 


8 


INTRODUCTION 


bended  nature  of  social  production  ever  since  it  became 
a  production  of  goods  for  excbange. 

In  times  of  primitive  communism,  tbe  conditions  of 
production  were  clear  and  easily  understood.  Tbings 
were  produced  jointly  for  use  and  consumed  in  common. 
]\[an  was  master  of  bis  mode  of  production  and  tbus 
master  of  bis  own  fate  as  far  as  tbe  superior  forces  of  na- 
ture admitted  it.  Under  sucb  conditions,  social  ideas 
could  not  belp  being  simple  and  clear.  Tbere  being  no 
clasb  between  personal  and  social  interests,  men  bad  no 
conception  of  a  deep  cbasm  between  good  and  bad. 
Only  tbe  uncontrolled  forces  of  nature  stood  like  unintel- 
ligible and  mysterious  powers,  tbat  appeared  to  tbem 
eitber  as  well  meaning  or  as  evil  spirits,  above  tbese  primi- 
tive little  societies. 

But  witb  tbe  advent  of  tbe  production  of  commodities 
tbe  picture  cbanges.  Civilized  bumanity  begins  to  feel 
itself  somewbat  relieved  from  tbe  bard  and  ungovern- 
able pressure  of  fickle  natural  forces.  But  now  new  de- 
mons arise  out  of  social  conditions.  "No  sooner  did  tbe 
producers  give  tbeir  products  away  in  excbange  instead 
of  consuming  tbem  as  beretofore,  tban  tbey  lost  control 
of  tbem.  Tbey  no  longer  knew  wbat  became  of  tbeir 
products,  and  tbere  was  a  possibility  tbat  tbese  products 
migbt  some  day  be  used  for  tbe  exploitation  and  oppres- 
sion of  tbe  producers — Tbe  products  rule  tbe  producers." 
(Engels)  In  tbe  production  of  commodities,  it  is  not  tbe 
purpose  of  tbe  individual  producer  wbicb  is  accomplisbcd, 
but  ratber  tbat  wbicb  tbe  productive  forces  back  of  bim 
are  aiming  at.  Man  proposes,  but  a  social  power,  stronger 
tban  bimself,  disposes ;  be  is  no  longer  master  of  bis  fate. 
Tbe  inter-relations  of  production  become  complicated  and 
difficult  to  grasp.  Wbile  it  is  true  tbat  tbe  individual  is 
tbe  producing  unit,  yet  bis  individual  labor  is  only  a  sub- 


I 


INTRODUCTION  9 

ordinate  part  of  tbe  wbole  process  of  social  production, 
of  wbicb  be  remains  a  tool.  Tbe  fruits  of  tbe  labor  of 
many  are  enjoyed  by  a  few  individuals.  Tbe  social  co- 
operation is  concealed  bebind  a  violent  competitive  strug- 
gle of  tbe  producers  against  one  anotber.  Tbe  interests 
of  tbe  individuals  are  at  war  witb  tbose  of  society. 
Good,  tbat  is  to  say  tbe  consideration  of  tbe  common  wel- 
fare, is  opposed  to  bad,  tbat  is  to  say  tbe  sacrifice  of 
everytbing  to  private  interests.  Tbe  passions  of  men  as 
well  as  tbeir  mental  gifts,  after  tbey  bave  been  aroused, 
developed,  trained,  strengtbened,  and  refined  in  tbis 
struggle,  bencefortb  become  so  many  weapons  wbicb  a 
superior  power  turns  against  tbeir  belpless  possessors. 

Sucb  were  tbe  impressions  out  of  wbicb  tbinking  men 
were  obliged  to  fasbion  tbeir  world-pbilosopby,  wbile,  at 
tbe  same  time,  tbey  were  members  of  tbe  possessing 
classes  and  bad  tbus  an  opportunity  to  employ  tbeir  leisure 
for  a  certain  self-study,  witbout,  bowever,  being  in  toucb 
witb  tbe  source  of  tbeir  impressions,  viz.,  tbe  process  of 
social  labor  wbicb  alone  could  bave  enabled  tbem  to  see 
tbrougb  tbe  social  origin  of  tbeir  ideas.  Men  of  tbis  class, 
tberefore,  were  led  to  tbe  assumption  tbat  tbeir  ideas 
emanated  from  some  supernatural  and  spiritual  power  or 
tbat  tbey  were  tbemselves  independent  supernatural  pow- 
ers. Tbis  dualist  metapbysical  mode  of  tbougbt  bas  gone 
tbrougb  various  transformations  in  tbe  course  of  time, 
adapting  itself  to  tbe  evolution  of  production  beginning 
witb  ancient  slavery,  on  tbrougb  tbe  serfdom  of  tbe  Mid- 
dle Ages  and  of  mediaeval  commodity  production,  to 
modern  capitalism.  Tbese  successive  cbanges  of  form  are 
embodied  in  Grecian  pbilosopby,  in  tbe  various  pbases 
of  tbe  Cbristian  religion,  and  in  tbe  modern  systems  of 
pbilosopby. 

But  we  must  not  regard  tbese  systems  and  religions 


10 


INTRODUCTION 


for  what  they  generally  pass,  that  is  to  say,  we  must  not 
think  them  to  be  only  repeated  unsuccessful  attempts  to 
formulate  absolute  truth.  They  are  merely  the  incarna- 
tions of  progressive  stages  of  better  knowledge  acquired 
by  the  human  mind  about  itself  and  about  the  universe. 
It  was  the  aim  of  philosophical  thought  to  find  satisfaction 
in  understanding.  And  as  long  as  understanding  could  not 
wholly  be  gotten  by  natural  means,  there  remained  always 
a  field  for  the  supernatural  and  incomprehensible.  But 
by  the  painstaking  mental  work  of  the  deepest  thinkers, 
the  material  of  science  was  ceaselessly  increased,  and  the 
field  of  the  supernatural  and  incomprehensible  was  ever 
more  narrowed.  And  this  is  especially  the  case  since  the 
progress  of  capitalist  production  has  promoted  the  per- 
sistent study  of  nature.  For  through  this  study  the  hu- 
man mind  was  enabled  to  test  its  powers  by  simple,  quiet, 
persistent  and  fruitful  labor  in  the  search  for  successive 
parts  of  truths  and  thus  to  rid  itself  from  the  overirritation 
of  hopeless  quest  after  absolute  truth.  The  desire  to  as- 
certain the  value  of  these  new  truths  gave  rise  to  the 
problems  of  the  theory  of  understanding.  The  attempts 
to  solve  these  problems  form  a  permanent  part  of  modern 
systems  of  philosophy,  which  represent  a  graduated 
evolution  of  the  theory  of  understanding.  But  the  super- 
natural clement  in  these  systems  prevented  their  perfec- 
tion. 

Under  the  impulse  of  the  technical  requirements  of 
capitalism,  the  evolution  of  natural  sciences  became  a 
triumphal  march  of  the  human  mind.  Nature  was  sub- 
jugated first  through  the  discovery  of  its  laws  by  the 
human  mind,  and  then  by  the  material  subordination  of 
Ahc  known  forces  of  nature  to  the  human  will  in  the  ser- 
vice of  our  main  object,  the  production  of  the  necessaries 
of  life  with  a  minimum  expenditure  of  energy.    But  this 


INTRODUCTION 


11 


bright  shining  light  rendered,  by  contrast,  the  gloom 
which  surrounded  the  phenomena  of  human  society  only 
the  darker,  and  capitalism  in  its  development  still  accen- 
tuates this  contrast,  as  it  accentuates  and  thus  renders 
more  easily  visible  and  intelligible  all  contrasts.  While 
the  natural  sciences  dispensed  with  all  mysterious  secrecy 
within  their  narrower  domain,  the  darkness  shrouding 
the  origin  of  ideas  still  offered  a  welcome  refuge  to  the 
belief  in  miracles  on  the  spiritual  field. 

Capitalism  is  now  approaching  its  decline.  Socialism 
is  near.  And  the  vital  importance  of  this  transition  in 
human  history  cannot  be  stated  more  strongly  than  in 
the  words  of  Marx  and  Engels:  "This  concludes  the 
primary  history  of  man.  He  thereby  passes  definitely  out 
of  the  animal  kingdom."  The  social  regulation  of  pro- 
duction makes  man  fully  the  master  of  his  own  fate.  No 
longer  does  any  mysterious  social  power  then  thwart  his 
plans  or  jeopardise  his  success.  Nor  does  any  mysterious 
natural  force  control  him  henceforth.  He  is  no  longer 
the  slave,  but  the  master  of  nature.  He  has  investigated 
its  effects,  understands  them,  and  presses  them  into  his 
service.  For  the  first  time  in  his  history  he  will  then  be 
the  ruler  of  the  earth. 

We  now  see  that  the  many  centuries  that  filled  the 
history  of  civilization  were  a  necessary  preparation  for 
socialism,  a  slow  struggle  to  escape  from  nature's  slavery, 
a  gradual  increase  of  the  productivity  of  labor,  up  to  the 
point  where  the  necessaries  of  life  for  all  may  be  ob- 
tained almost  without  exertion.  This  is  the  prime  merit 
of  capitalism  and  its  justification,  that  after  so  many  cen- 
turies of  hardly  perceptible  progress  it  taught  man  to 
conquer  nature  by  a  rapid  assault.  At  the  same  time  it 
set  loose  the  forces  of  production  and  finally  transformed 
and  bared  the  springs  of  the  productive  process  to  such 


18 


INTRODUCTION 


a  degree  that  they  easily  could  be  perceived  and  grasped 
by  the  human  mind ;  this  was  the  indispensible  condition 
for  the  control  of  this  process. 

As  never  since  the  first  advent  of  production  of  com- 
modities there  has  been  such  a  fundamental  revolution, 
it  must  necessarily  be  accompanied  by  an  equally  funda- 
metal  spiritual  revolution.  This  economic  revolution  is 
the  conclusion  of  the  long  period  of  class  antagonisms 
and  of  production  of  commodities ;  it  carries  with  it  the 
end  of  the  dualist  and  supernatural  thoughts  arising  from 
this  source.  The  mystery  of  social  processes  passes  away 
with  this  period,  and  the  spiritual  expression  of  these  mys- 
teries must  necessarily  disappear  with  it.  The  slow  de- 
velopment of  human  thought  from  ignorance  to  an  ever 
increased  understanding  thereby  ends  its  first  chapter. 
This  signifies  the  completion  and  conclusion  of  philosophy, 
which  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  philosophy  as  such 
passes  out  of  existence,  while  its  place  is  taken  by  the 
science  of  the  human  mind,  a  part  of  natural  science. 

A  new  system  of  production  sheds  its  light  into  the 
minds  of  men  already  before  it  has  fully  materialized. 
The  same  science  which  teaches  us  to  understand  and 
thereby  to  control  the  social  forces,  also  unfetters  the 
mind  from  the  bewitching  effects  of  those  forces.  It 
enables  him  even  now  already  to  emancipate  himself 
from  traditional  superstitions  and  ideas  which  were  for- 
merly the  expression  of  things  unknown.  We  may  an- 
ticipate with  our  mind  the  coming  time.  And  thus  the 
ideas  which  will  then  dominate  are  already  even  now 
growing  within  us  in  a  rudimentary  form  corresponding 
to  the  present  actual  economic  development.  By  this 
means  we  are  even  now  enabled  to  overcome  the  capitalist 
phvloso])hy  in  thought  and  to  soberly  and  clearly  grasp 
the  matter-dependent  nature  of  our  spirit.  , 


INTRODUCTION 


13 


The  completion  and  the  end  of  philosophy  need  not 
wait  for  the  realization  of  socialist  production.  The  new 
understanding  does  not  fall  from  heaven  like  a  meteor. 
It  develops  with  the  social-economic  development,  first 
imperfectly  and  imperceptibly,  in  a  few  thinkers  who 
most  strongly  feel  the  breath  of  the  approaching  time. 
With  the  growth  of  the  science  of  sociology  and  with 
that  of  its  practical  application,  the  socialist  labor  move- 
ment, the  new  understanding  simultaneously  spreads  and 
gains  ground  step  by  step,  waging  a  relentless  battle 
against  the  traditional  ideas  to  which  the  ruling  classes 
are  clinging.  This  struggle  is  the  mental  companion  of 
the  social  class  struggle. 

^U  ^^    ^t    ^K     ^K     ^K     ^K     ^Lf"   "^l^    ^^    ^^    *l^ 
^*    *(*    ^*    ^*    ^*    T*    '^    "^    ^^    ^^    «'!%    tfj^ 

The  methods  of  the  new  natural  science  had  already 
been  practiced  for  a  few  centuries  before  the  new  theory 
was  formulated.  It  first  found  vent  in  the  expression  of 
surprise  at  the  great  confidence  with  which  men  assumed 
to  predict  certain  phenomena  and  to  point  out  their  con- 
nections. Our  experience  is  limited  to  a  few  successive 
observations  of  the  regularity  or  coincidence  of  events. 
But  we  attribute  to  natural  laws,  in  which  are  expressed 
causal  relations  of  phenomena,  a  general  and  necessary 
applicability  which  far  exceeds  our  experience.  The 
English  thinker  Hume  was  the  first  who  clearly  expressed 
and  formulated  the  question — since  called  the  problem 
of  causality — why  men  always  act  in  this  manner.  But  as 
he  believed  the  reason  for  such  action  should  be  sought  in 
the  nature  of  experience  alone,  experience  being  the  only 
source  of  knowledge,  and  as  he  did  not  further  investi- 
gate the  special  and  distinct  part  played  by  the  nature  of 
the  human  mind  in  this  experiential  connection,  he  could 
not  find  any  satisfactory  answer. 

Kant,  who  made  the  first  important  step  toward  the 


13 


INTRODUCTION 


a  degree  that  they  easily  could  be  perceived  and  grasped 
by  the  human  mind ;  this  was  the  indispensible  condition 
for  the  control  of  this  process. 

As  never  since  the  first  advent  of  production  of  com- 
modities there  has  been  such  a  fundamental  revolution, 
it  must  necessarily  be  accompanied  by  an  equally  funda- 
metal  spiritual  revolution.  This  economic  revolution  is 
the  conclusion  of  the  long  period  of  class  antagonisms 
and  of  production  of  commodities ;  it  carries  with  it  the 
end  of  the  dualist  and  supernatural  thoughts  arising  from 
this  source.  The  mystery  of  social  processes  passes  away 
with  this  period,  and  the  spiritual  expression  of  these  mys- 
teries must  necessarily  disappear  with  it.  The  slow  de- 
velopment of  human  thought  from  ignorance  to  an  ever 
increased  understanding  thereby  ends  its  first  chapter. 
This  signifies  the  completion  and  conclusion  of  philosophy, 
which  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  philosophy  as  such 
passes  out  of  existence,  while  its  place  is  taken  by  the 
science  of  the  human  mind,  a  part  of  natural  science. 

A  new  system  of  production  sheds  its  light  into  the 
minds  of  men  already  before  it  has  fully  materialized. 
The  same  science  which  teaches  us  to  understand  and 
thereby  to  control  the  social  forces,  also  unfetters  the 
mind  from  the  bewitching  effects  of  those  forces.  It 
enables  him  even  now  already  to  emancipate  himself 
from  traditional  superstitions  and  ideas  which  were  for- 
merly the  expression  of  things  unknown.  We  may  an- 
ticipate with  our  mind  the  coming  time.  And  thus  the 
ideas  which  will  then  dominate  are  already  even  now 
growing  within  us  in  a  rudimentary  form  corresponding 
to  the  present  actual  economic  development.  By  this 
means  we  are  even  now  enabled  to  overcome  the  capitalist 
philosophy  in  thought  and  to  soberly  and  clearly  grasp 
the  matter-dependent  nature  of  our  spirit. 


IXTRODUCTION 


13 


The  completion  and  the  end  of  philosophy  need  not 
wait  for  the  realization  of  socialist  production.  The  new 
understanding  does  not  fall  from  heaven  like  a  meteor. 
It  develops  with  the  social-economic  development,  first 
imperfectly  and  imperceptibly,  in  a  few  thinkers  who 
most  strongly  feel  the  breath  of  the  approaching  time. 
With  the  growth  of  the  science  of  sociology  and  with 
that  of  its  practical  application,  the  socialist  labor  move- 
ment, the  new  understanding  simultaneously  spreads  and 
gains  ground  step  by  step,  waging  a  relentless  battle 
against  the  traditional  ideas  to  which  the  ruling  classes 
are  clinging.  This  struggle  is  the  mental  companion  of 
the  social  class  struggle. 


:(c4c*4c4c******4c 


The  methods  of  the  new  natural  science  had  already 
been  practiced  for  a  fe\Y  centuries  before  the  new  theor>* 
was  formulated.  It  first  found  vent  in  the  expression  of 
surprise  at  the  great  confidence  with  which  men  assumed 
to  predict  certain  phenomena  and  to  point  out  their  con- 
nections. Our  experience  is  limited  to  a  few  successive 
observations  of  the  regularity  or  coincidence  of  events. 
But  we  attribute  to  natural  laws,  in  which  are  expressed 
causal  relations  of  phenomena,  a  general  and  necessary 
applicability  which  far  exceeds  our  experience.  The 
English  thinker  Hume  was  the  first  who  clearly  expressed 
and  formulated  the  question — since  called  the  problem 
of  causality — why  men  always  act  in  this  manner.  But  as 
he  believed  the  reason  for  such  action  should  be  sought  in 
the  nature  of  experience  alone,  experience  being  the  only 
source  of  knowledge,  and  as  he  did  not  further  investi- 
gate the  special  and  distinct  part  played  by  the  nature  of 
the  human  mind  in  this  experiential  connection,  he  could 
not  find  any  satisfactory  answer. 

Kant,  who  made  the  first  important  step  toward  the 


I 


14 


INTRODUCTIOX 


solution  of  this  question,  had  been  trained  in  the  school 
of  rationalism  which  then  dominated  in  Germany  and 
which  represented  an  adaptation  of  mediaeval  scholasti- 
cism to  the  requirements  of  increased  knowledge.  Starting 
from  the  thesis  that  things  which  are  logical  in  the  mind 
must  be  real  in  nature,  the  rationalists  formulated  by 
mere  deduction  general  truths  about  god,  infinity  and  im- 
mortality. Under  the  influence  of  Hume,  Kant  became 
the  critic  of  rationalism  and  thus  the  reformer  of  phi- 
losophy. 

The  question,  how  it  is  that  we  have  knowledge  of 
generally  applicable  laws  in  which  we  have  implicit  con- 
fidence— such  as  mathematical  theses,  or  the  maxim  that 
every  change  has  a  cause — was  answered  by  Kant  in  this 
way:  Experience  and  science  are  as  much  conditioned 
on  properties  inherent  in  the  organization  of  our  mind  as 
on  the  impressions  of  the  outer  world.  The  former  prop- 
erties must  necessarily  be  contained  in  all  experience 
and  science.  Therefore  everything  dependent  on  this 
common  mental  part  of  science  must  be  perfectly  certain 
and  independent  of  special  sense  impressions.  Common 
to  all  experience,  and  inseparable  from  it,  are  the  pure 
sense-conceptions  (reine  Anschauungsformen),  such  as 
space  and  time,  while  the  many  experiences,  in  order  to 
succeed  in  forming  understanding  and  science,  must  be 
connected  by  the  pure  mind-conceptions  (reine  Ver- 
standesbegriffe),  the  so-called  categories;  among  the  lat- 
ter also  belongs  causality. 

Now  Kant  explains  the  necessity  and  general  ap- 
plicability of  the  pure  sense  and  mind  conceptions  by  the 
fact  that  they  arise  from  the  organization  of  our  mind. 
Accordingly,  the  world  appears  to  the  senses  as  a  suc- 
cession of  phenomena  in  time  and  space.  Our 
reason  transforms  these  phenomena  into  things  which 


INTRODUCTION 


15 


are  welded  into  one  aggregate  nature  by  laws  of  cause 
and  effect.  On  the  things  as  they  really  are  in  them- 
selves, in  the  opinion  of  Kant,  these  pure  conceptions 
cannot  be  applied.  We  know  nothing  of  them  and  can 
neither  perceive  nor  reconstruct  them  by  reason,  because 
*'in  themselves"  they  are  wholly  beyond  reason  and 
knowledge. 

The  result  of  this  investigation,  which  was  the  first 
valuable  contribution  to  a  scientific  theory  of  understand- 
ing and  forms,  from  our  standpoint,  the  most  important 
part  of  Kant's  philosophy,  served  him  mainly  as  a  means 
of  answering  the  following  questions:  What  is  the 
value  of  knowledge  which  exceeds  experience?  Can 
we,  by  mere  deduction  through  concepts  which  go  be- 
yond experience,  arrive  at  truths?  His  answer  was: 
No,  and  it  was  a  crushing  blow  to  rationalism.  W^e 
cannot  exceed  the  boundaries  of  experience.  By  expe- 
rience alone  can  we  arrive  at  science.  All  supposed 
knowledge  about  the  unlimited  and  infinite,  about  con- 
cepts of  pure  reason  J  called  Ideas  by  Kant,  (as  the  soul, 
the  world,  and  God)  is  nothing  but  illusions.  The  con- 
tradictions in  which  the  human  mind  becomes  involved 
whenever  it  applies  the  categories  outside  of  experience 
to  such  subjects,  are  manifested  in  the  fruitless  strife 
between  the  philosophical  systems.  Metaphysics  as  a 
science  is  impossible. 

This  did  not  give  the  deathblow  to  rationalism  alone, 
but  also  to  bourgeois  materialism  which  reigned  among 
the  French  radical  thinkers.  Kant's  researches  refuted 
the  negative  as  well  as  the  positive  assertions  anent  the 
supernatural  and  infinite.  This  cleared  the  field  for  faith, 
for  intuitive  conviction.  God,  freedom  and  immortality 
are  concepts  the  truth  of  which  cannot  be  proved  by  rea- 
son, like  the  natural  truths  derived   from  experience. 


16 


INTRODUCTION 


But  nevertheless  their  reality  is  no  less  certain,  only  it 
is  of  a  different  nature,  being  subjective  and,  therefore, 
necessarily  a  matter  of  personal  conviction.  The  free- 
dom of  the  will,  for  instance,  is  not  a  knowledge  gained 
by  experience,  because  experience  never  teaches  us 
anything  but  lack  of  freedom  and  dependence  on  the 
laws  of  nature.  But  nevertheless  freedom  of  will  is  a 
necessary  conviction  of  every  one  who  feels  it  in  the 
categorical  imperative:  Thou  shalt!  of  every  one  pos- 
sessed by  a  sense  of  duty  and  of  the  knowledge  that  he 
can  act  accordingly ;  therefore  freedom  of  will  is  uncon- 
ditionally certain  and  requires  no  proof  by  experience. 
And  from  this  premise  there  follows  in  same  way  the 
assurance  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  of  the  ex- 
istence of  God.  It  gives  the  same  kind  of  certainty  to 
all  ideas  which  were  left  in  a  state  of  uncertainty  by  the 
critique  of  pure  reason.  At  the  same  time  freedom  of 
will  determines  the  form  of  the  theory  of  understanding. 
In  the  entire  world  of  phenomena  there  was  no  room  for 
freedom,  for  these  phenomena  follow  strict  rules  of 
causality,  as  demanded  by  the  organization  of  our  mind. 
Therefore  it  was  necessary  to  make  room  for  freedom 
of  will  somewhere  else,  and  so  "things  in  themselves," 
hitherto  a  phrase  without  value  and  meaning,  assumed  a 
higher  importance.  They  were  not  bound  to  space,  time 
or  categories,  they  were  free;  they  formed  so  to  say  a 
second  world,  the  world  of  noumena,  which  stood  be- 
hind the  world  of  phenomena  and  which  solved  the  con- 
tradiction between  the  lawful  dependence  of  things  in 
nature  and  between  the  personal  conviction  of  freedom 
of  will. 

These  opinions  and  reasonings  were  fully  in  accord 
with  the  conditions  of  science  and  the  economic  devel- 
opment of  Kant's  time.     The  field  of  nature  was  left 


INTRODUCTION 


ir 


entirely  to  the  inductive  method  of  science  which  based 
itself  on  strictly  materialist  experience  and  observation, 
classifying  things  systematically  in  their  causal  order 
and  excluding  all  supernatural  interference.  But  while 
faith  was  banished  from  the  natural  sciences  forever,  it 
could  not  be  dispensed  with.  The  ignorance  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  human  will  left  room  for  a  supernatural 
ethic.  The  attempts  of  the  materialists  to  exclude  the 
supernatural  also  from  this  field  failed.  The  time  had 
not  come  as  yet  for  a  materialist  and  natural  ethics,  for 
science  was  not  yet  able  to  demonstrate  as  an  indis- 
putable truth,  founded  on  experience,  in  what  manner 
ethical  codes  and  moral  ideas  in  general  had  a  material 
origin. 

This  state  of  things  shows  that  the  Kantian  philoso- 
phy is  the  purest  expression  of  bourgeois  thought,  and 
this  is  still  more  emphasized  by  the  fact  that  freedom  is 
the  center  of  his  system  and  controls  it.  Rising  capital- 
ism required  freedom  for  the  producers  of  commodities 
in  order  to  expand  its  productive  forces,  it  required  free- 
dom of  competition  and  freedom  of  unlimited  exploi- 
tation. The  producers  of  commodities  should  be  free 
from  all  fetters  and  restrictions,  and  unhampered  by 
any  coercion,  in  order  that  they  could  go,  under  the  sole 
direction  of  their  own  intelligence,  into  free  compe- 
tition with  their  fellow  citizens.  For  this  reason,  free- 
dom became  the  slogan  of  the  young  bourgeoisie  aspir- 
ing to  political  power,  and  Kant's  doctrine  of  the  free 
will,  the  basis  of  his  ethics,  was  the  echo  of  the  approach- 
ing French  Revolution.  But  freedom  was  not  absolute; 
it  was  to  be  dependent  on  the  moral  law.  It  was  not  to 
be  used  in  the  quest  for  happiness,  but  in  accord  with 
the  moral  law,  in  the  service  of  duty.  If  the  bourgeois 
society  was  to  exist,  the  private  interest  of  the  indi- 


-jik.  S: 


18 


INTRODUCTION 


vidual  must  not  be  paramount,  tlie  welfare  of  the  entire 
class  had  to  be  superior  to  that  of  the  individual,  and  the 
commandments  of  this  class  had  to  be  recognized  as 
moral  laws  taking  precedence  over  the  quest  for  happi- 
ness. But  for  this  very  reason,  these  moral  laws  could 
never  be  fully  obeyed,  and  every  one  found  himself 
compelled  to  violate  them  in  his  own  interest.  Hence 
the  moral  law  existed  only  as  a  code  which  could  never 
be  fulfilled.    And  so  it  stood  outside  of  experience. 

In   Kant's  ethics  the   internal  antagonism  of  bour- 
geois society  is  reflected,  that  antagonism  which  is  the 
compelling  force  of  the  ever  increasing  economic  devel- 
opment.    The  foundation  of  this  antagonism  is  the  an- 
tagonism,   already    mentioned,    between    the    individual 
and   social   character  of  production   that  gives  rise   to 
omnipotent,   but    unconceived    social    forces    ruling   the 
destiny  of  man.     In  capitalistic  production  it  is  still  in- 
tensified by  the  antithesis  of  the  wealthy  ruling  class  and 
the  poor  producing  class  that  is  continuously  augmented 
by  those  who  are  expropriated  by  competition.    This  an- 
tagonism  gives   rise   to   the   contradiction   between  the 
aims  of  men  and  the  results  achieved,  between  the  de- 
sire of  happiness  and  the  misery  of  the  great  mass.     It 
is  the  basis  of  the  contradiction  between  virtue  and  vice, 
between   freedom   and   dependence,   between   faith   and 
science,  between  phenomenon  and  "thing  itself."     It  is 
at  the  bottom  of  all  contradictions  and  of  the  entire  pro- 
nounced   dualism    of   the    Kantian    philosophy.      These 
contradictions  are  to  blame  for  the  downfall  of  the  sys- 
tem, and  the  work  of   disintegration  was  unavoidable 
from  the  moment  that  the  contradictions  of  the  bour- 
geois production  became  apparent,  that  is  to  say  imme- 
diately  after  the   political   victory   of   the   bourgeoisie. 
The  system  of  Kant  could,  however,  not  be  overcome, 


INTRODUCTION 


19 


!  I 


unkss  the  material  origin  of  morality  could  be  un- 
covered. Then  these  contradictions  could  be  understood 
and  solved  by  showing  that  they  were  relative  and  not 
absolute  as  they  appeared.  And  not  until  then  could  a 
materialist  ethics,  a  science  of  morality,  drive  faith 
from  its  last  retreat.  This  was  at  last  accomplished  by 
the  discovery  of  social  class  struggles  and  of  the  nature 
of  capitalist  production,  by  the  pioneer  work  of  Karl 
Marx. 

The  practice  of  developed  capitalism  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  19th  century  directly  challenged  proletarian 
thinkers  to  criticise  Kant's  doctrine  of  practical  reason. 
Bourgeois  ethics  and  freedom  manifested  themselves  in 
the  form  of  freedom  of  exploitation  in  the  interest  of  the 
bourgeoisie,  as  slavery  for  the  working  class.  The  main- 
tenance of  human  dignity  appeared  in  reality  as  the  bru- 
talization  and  degradation  of  the  proletarians,  and  the 
state  founded  on  justice  proved  to  be  nothing  but  the 
class  state  of  the  bourgeoisie.  And  so  it  was  seen  that 
Kant's  sublime  ethics,  instead  of  being  the  basis  in  all 
eternity  of  human  activity  in  general,  was  merely  the 
expression  of  the  narow  class  interests  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
This  proletarian  criticism  was  the  first  material  for  a 
general  theory,  and  once  it  had  been  stated,  its  correct- 
ness was  demonstrated  more  and  more  by  the  study  of 
previous  historical  events,  and  these  events  wxre  there- 
by shown  in  their  proper  light.  It  was  then  understood 
by  this  theory  that  the  social  classes,  distinguished  by 
their  position  in  the  process  of  production,  had  different 
and  antagonistic  economic  interests,  and  that  each  class 
did  necessarily  regard  its  own  interest  as  good  and  sacred. 
These  general  class  interests  were  not  recognized  in 
their  true  character  but  appeared  to  men  in  the  guise  of 
superior  moral  motives;  in  this  form  they  crowded  the 


20 


INTRODUCTION 


special   individual   interests   into   the  background,   and 
since  the  class  interests  were  generally  felt,  all  the  mem- 
bers   of  the  same  class  recognized  them.    Moreover,  a 
ruling  class  could  temporarily  compel  a  defeated  or  sup- 
pressed class  to  recognize  the  class  interests  of  the  rul- 
ers as  a  moral  law,  so  long  as  the  inevitability  of  the 
mode  of  production  in  which  that  class  ruled  was  ac- 
knowledged.    Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  nature  and 
significance  of  the  productive  process  was  not  under- 
stood, the  origin  of  human  motives  could  not  be  discov- 
ered.    They  were  not  traced  back  to  experience,  but 
simply  felt  directly  and  intuitively.     And  consequently 
they  were  thought  to  be  of  a  supernatural  origin  and 

eternal  duration. 

Not  only  the  moral  codes,  but  also  other  products  of 
the   human   mind,   such   as   religion,   science,   arts,   phi- 
losophy, were  then  understood  to  be  intimately  connected 
with    the   actual   material    conditions    of   society.     The 
human  mind  is  influenced  in  all  its  products  by  the  en- 
tire world  outside  of  it.    And  thus  the  mind  is  seen  to  be 
a  part  of  nature,  and  the  science  of  the  mind  becomes 
a  natural  science.     The  impressions  of  the  outer  world 
determine  the  experience  of  man,  his  wants  determine 
his   will,  and   his   general  wants   his   moral   will.     The 
world  around  him  determines  man's  wants  and  impres- 
sions, but  these,  on  the  other  hand,  determine  his  will 
and  activity  by  which  he  changes  the  world;  this  will- 
directed  activity  appears  in  the  process  of  social  produc- 
tion.   In  this  manner  man  by  his  work  is  a  part,  a  link 
in  the  great  chain  of  natural  and  social  development. 

This  conception  overturns  the  foundations  of  phi- 
losophy. Since  the  human  mind  is  seen  now  to  be  a  part 
of  nature  and  interacts  with  the  rest  of  the  world  ac- 
cording to  laws  which  are  more  or  less  known,  it  is 


INTRODUCTION 


21 


classed  among  Kant's  phenomena.  There  is  no  longer 
any  need  of  talking  about  noumena.  Thus  they  do 
not  longer  exist  for  us.  Philosophy  then  reduces  itself 
to  the  theory  of  experience,  to  the  science  of  the  human 
mind.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the  beginning  made  by 
Kant  had  to  be  farther  developed.  Kant  had  always 
separated  mind  and  nature  very  sharply.  But  the  un- 
derstanding that  this  separation  should  only  be  made 
temporarily  for  the  purpose  of  better  investigation,  and 
that  there  is  no  absolute  difference  between  matter  and 
mind  made  it  possible  to  advance  the  science  of  thought 
processes.  However,  this  could  be  accomplished  only  by  a 
thinker  who  had  fully  digested  the  teachings  of  socialism. 
This  problem  was  solved  by  Joseph  Dietzgen  in  his  work 
on  "THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK," 
the  first  edition  of  which  appeared  in  1869,  and  by  this 
w^ork  he  won  for  himself  the  name  of  philosopher  of  the 
proletariat.  This  problem  could  be  solved  only  by  the  help 
of  the  dialectic  method.  Therefore,  the  idealist  philo- 
sophical systems  from  Kant  to  Hegel  which  consist 
chiefly  in  the  development  of  the  dialectic  method,  must 
be  regarded  as  the  indispensable  pioneers  and  precursors 
of  Dietzgen's  proletarian  philosophy. 


^T%   ^^  >n  P^   ^K  ff'K  ^f^  ^f%  ?|C  n^  ?K   7^ 


The  philosophy  of  Kant  necessarily  broke  down  on 
account  of  its  dualism.  It  had  shown  that  there  is  safety 
only  in  finite  and  material  experience,  and  that  the  mind 
becomes  involved  in  contradictions  whenever  it  ventures 
beyond  that  line.  The  mind's  reason  calls  for  absolute 
truth  which  cannot  be  gotten.  Hence  the  mind  is  grop- 
ing in  the  dark  and  critique  may  perhaps  explain  why  it 
is  in  the  dark,  but  it  cannot  show  the  way  out.  What  is 
called  with  Kant  dialectics  is  in  reality  resignation.  True, 
the  mind  finds  knowledge  about  things  outside  of  experi- 


22 


INTRODUCTION 


ence  by  some  other  way,  viz.,  by  means  of  its  moral  con- 
sciousness, but  this  intuitive  knowledge  in  the  form  of 
faith  remains   sharply  separated   from  scientific  under- 
standing.    It  was  the  task  of  the  philosophical  develop- 
ment immediately  after  Kant,  to  do  away  with  this  sharp 
separation,   this    unreconciled    contradiction.      This   de- 
velopment ended   with  Hegel;     its  result   was   the  un- 
derstanding that  contradiction  is  the  true  nature  of  ev- 
erything.   But  this  contradiction  cannot  be  left  to  stand 
undisturbed,  it  must  be  solved  and  still  retained  in  a 
higher   form,   and   thus  be   reconciled.     Therefore   the 
world  of  phenomena  cannot  be  understood  as  being  at 
rest.    It  can  be  understood  only  as  a  thing  in  motion,  as 
activity,  as  a  continuous  change.     Action  is  always  the 
reconciliation  of  contradiction  in  some  higher  form,  and 
contradiction  appears  in  this  way  as  the  lever  of  progres- 
sive development.    That  which  accomplishes  this  dialec- 
tic self-development  does  not  appear  in  the  idealistic  sys- 
tems as  the  material  world  itself,  but  as  the  spiritual,  the 
idea.     In  Hegel's  philosophy,  this   conception  assumes 
the  form  of  a  comprehensive  system  outlining  the  self- 
development  of  the  Absolute  which  is  spiritual  and  is 
identical  with  God.     The  development  of  this  Abso- 
lute takes  place  in  three  stages;  in  its  primitive  pure 
spiritual    form   it   develops    out   of   its    undifferentiated 
being  the  conceptions  of  logic;  then  it  expresses  itself 
in  another,  an  external  form,  opposite  to  itself,  as  Nature. 
In   nature  all   forms  develop  by  way  of  contradictions 
which   are   eliminated   by   the   development  of   some 
higher  form.     Finally  the  Absolute  awakens  to  con- 
sciousness in   nature   in  the   form  of  the  human  mind 
and  reaches  thus  its  third  stage,  at  which  the  opposite 
elements,    matter   and    spirit,    are    reconciled    into    a 
unity.    The  human  mind  evolves  in  the  same  way  to 


INTRODUCTION 


23 


ever  higher  stages,  until  it  arrives,  at  the  end  of  its 
development  by  understanding  itself,  that  is  to  say,  by 
knowing  intuitively  the  Absolute.  This  is  what  happens 
unconsciously  in  religion.  Religion,  which  in  the  form  of 
faith  must  be  satisfied  with  a  modest  corner  in  the 
system  of  Kant,  appears  in  the  system  of  Hegel  very 
proudly  as  a  higher  sort  of  understanding  superior  to 
all  other  knowledge,  as  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  abso- 
lute truth  (God).  In  philosophy  this  is  done  con- 
sciously.  And  the  historical  development  wdiich  finds 
its  conclusion  and  climax  in  the  Hegelian  philosophy 
corresponds  to  the  logical  development  of  the  human 
mind. 

Thus  Hegel  unites  all  sciences  and  all  parts  of  the 
w^orld  into  one  masterly  system  in  which  the  revolu- 
tionary dialetics,  the  theory  of  evolution,  that  consid- 
ers all  finite  things  as  perishable  and  transitory,  is 
given  a  conservative  conclusion  by  putting  an  end  to 
all  further  development  when  the  absolute  truth  is 
reached.  All  the  knowledge  of  that  period  was  as- 
signed to  its  place  somewhere  in  this  system,  on  one 
of  the  steps  of  the  dialectic  development.  iMany  of  the 
conceptions  of  the  natural  sciences  of  that  day,  which 
later  on  were  found  to  be  erroneous,  are  there  present- 
ed as  necessary  truths  resting  on  deduction,  not  on  ex- 
perience. This  could  give  the  impression  that  the  He- 
gelian philosophy  made  empirical  research  superfluous 
as  a  source  of  concrete  truths.  This  appearance  is  to 
blame  for  the  slight  recognition  of  Hegel  among  nat- 
uralists ;  in  natural  sciences,  this  philosophy  therefore 
has  w^on  much  less  importance  than  it  deserved  and 
than  it  might  have  w^on,  if  its  actual  significance,  which 
consists  in  the  harmonious  connection  between  w^idely 


24 


INTRODUCTION 


separated  events  and  sciences,  had  been  better  under- 
stood under  its  deceptive  guise. 

On  the  abstract  sciences  the  influence  of  Hegel  was 
greater,  and  here  he  held  an  exceptionally  prominent 
position  in  the  scientific  world  of  that  time.    On  one 
hand,  his  conception  of  history  as  a  progressive  evolu- 
tion in  which  every  imperfect  previous  condition  is  re- 
garded as  a  necessary  phase  and  preparation  for  sub- 
sequent conditions  and  thus  appears  natural  and  rea- 
sonable, was  a  great  gain  for  science.     On  the  other 
hand,  his  statements  on  the  philosophy  of  law  and  re- 
ligion met  the  requirements  and  conceptions  of  his 
time.     In  his  philosophy  of  law,  the  human  mind  is 
taken  in  that  stage  in  which  it  steps  into  reality,  hav- 
ing as  its  principal  characteristic  a  free  will.     It   is 
first  considered  as  a  single  individual  which  finds  its 
freedom   incorporated  in  its  property.     This  person- 
ality enters  into  relations  with  others  like  it.    Its  free- 
dom of  will   is  thereby  expressed  in  moral  laws.     By 
combining  all  individuals  into  one  aggregate  whole, 
their  contradictory  relations  are  merged  into  the  social 
units,  viz.,  the   family,  the  bourgeois   society    (biirger- 
liche    Gesellschaft)    and   the    state.      There   the    moral 
rules  are  carried  from  the  inner  to  the  outer  reality. 
As   the  expressions  of  a  superior,  common  and  more 
general  will,  they  stand  forth  in  the  generally  accepted 
moral  codes,  in  the  natural  laws  of  bourgeois  society 
and    in   the    authoritative   laws    of   the    state.      In   the 
state,  the  highest  form  of  which  is  the  monarchy,  the 
mind  finds  itself  at  its  highest  stage  of  objective  real- 
ization as  the  idea  of  the  state. 

The  reactionary  character  of  Hegelian  philosophy 
is  not  merely  a  superficial  appearance  that  rests  on  the 
glorification  of  state  and  royalty,  thanks  to  which  this 


INTRODUCTION 


25 


philosophy  was  raised  to  the  position  of  Prussian 
state  philosophy  after  the  restauration.  It  was  in 
its  very  essence  a  product  of  reaction  which  in  those 
days  represented  the  only  possible  advance  after  the 
revolution.  This  reaction  was  the  first  practical  crit* 
ique  of  bourgeois  society.  After  this  society  had  been 
firmly  established,  the  relative  amenities  of  the  old 
time  appeared  in  a  better  light,  because  the  shortcom- 
ings of  the  new  society  made  themselves  soon 
felt.  The  bourgeoisie  had  recoiled  before  the  conse- 
quences of  its  revolution,  when  it  recognized  that 
the  proletariat  was  its  barrier.  It  arrested  the  revolu- 
tion as  soon  as  its  bourgeois  aims  had  been  accom- 
plished, and  it  was  willing  to  acknowledge  again 
the  mastery  of  the  feudal  state  and  monarchy,  pro- 
vided they  would  protect  it  and  serve  its  interests. 
The  feudal  powers  that  previously  had  been  overcome 
by  the  weight  of  their  own  sins  and  by  the  uncondi- 
tional superiority  of  the  new  social  order,  again  lifted 
their  heads  when  the  new  order  in  its  turn  gave  cause 
for  well  founded  criticisms.  But  they  could  not  keep 
the  revolution  in  check,  unless  they  recognized  it  in  a 
limited  degree.  They  could  once  more  rule  over  the 
bourgeoisie,  provided  they  compromised  with  it  so  far 
as  it  was  inevitable.  They  could  no  longer  prevail 
against  capitalism,  but  they  could  govern  for  it.  Thus, 
by  their  rule,  the  imperfectness  of  capitalism  was  re- 
vealed. 

The  theory  of  restauration,  therefore,  had  to  con- 
sist first  of  all  of  a  thorough  critique  of  the  revolu- 
tionary bourgeois  philosophy.  But  this  philosophy 
could  not  be  thrown  aside  entirely.  So  far  as  a  crit- 
i«iue  of  the  old  order  was  concerned,  the  truth  of  bour- 
qcois  philosophy  had  to  be  admitted.     On  the  other 


2G 


INTRODUCTION 


hand,  the  sharp  distinction  it  made  between  the  fal- 
sity of  the  old  and  the  truth  of  the  new  order  was 
found  to  be  beside  the  mark.  So  the  correctness  of 
the  bourgeois  philosophy  itself  proved  to  be  relative 
and  limited,  like  that  of  a  herald  of  some  higher  truth 
which  in  its  turn  would  acknowledge  that  which  was 
temporarily  and  partially  true  in  its  vanquished  pre- 
cursor. In  this  way  the  contradictions  became  moments 
in  the  evolution  of  absolute  truth,  in  this  way,  further- 
more, the  dialectics  became  the  main  feature  and  method 
of  post-Kantian  philosophy ;  and  in  this  way,  finally,  the 
theorists  of  the  reaction  were  the  men  who  steered  philos- 
ophy over  new  courses  and  who  thereby  became  the  har- 
bingers of  socialism.  Scepticism  and  a  critique  of  all 
traditional  things,  yet  a  careful  protection  of  endan- 
gered faith,  had  characterized  the  tendencies  of  bour- 
geois thought  during  its  revolutionary  period.  In  the 
reactionary  stage,  the  bourgeois  implicitly  accepted 
the  belief  in  absolute  truth  and  cultivated  a  self-right- 
eous faith.  The  practice  of  :\Ietternich  and  of  the 
Holy  Alliance  corresponded  to  the  theory  of  Hegelian 
philosophy. 

The  practice  of  the  Prussian  police  state,  which 
embodied  the  shortcomings  of  capitalism  without  its 
advantages  and  thus  represented  a  higher  degree  of  re- 
action, destroyed  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  as  soon  as 
the  practices  of  maturing  capitalism  began  to  rebel 
against  the  fetters  by  which  reaction  endeavored  to 
bind  it.  Feuerbach  returned  in  his  critique  of  relig- 
ion from  the  fantastical  heights  of  abstraction  to  physi- 
cal man.  Marx  demonstrated  that  the  reality  of  bour- 
geois society  expresses  itself  in  its  class  antagonisms 
which  herald  its  imperfectness  and  approaching  down- 
fall, and  he  discovered  that  the  actual  historical  de- 


INTRODUCTION 


27 


velopment  rested  on  the  development  of  the  process 
of  material  production.  The  absolute  spirit  that  was 
supposed  to  be  embodied  in  the  constitution  of  the 
despotic  state  before  the  March  revolution  now  re- 
vealed itself  as  the  narrow  bourgeois  spirit  which  re- 
gards bourgeois  society  as  the  final  aim  of  all  histor- 
ical development.  The  Hegelian  statement  that  all 
finite  things  carry  within  themselves  the  germ  of 
their  own  dissolution  came  home  to  his  own  philoso* 
phy,  as  soon  as  its  finiteness  and  limitations  had  been 
grasped.  Its  conservative  form  was  abandoned,  but 
its  revolutionary  content,  the  dialectics,  was  pre- 
served. The  Hegelian  philosophy  was  finally  super- 
seded by  dialectic  materialism  which  declares  that  ab- 
solute truth  is  realized  only  in  the  infinite  progress  ot 
society  and  of  scientific  understanding. 

This  does  not  imply  a  wholesale  rejection  of  Hege- 
lian philosophy.  It  merely  means  that  the  relative  va- 
lidity of  that  philosophy  has  been  recognized.  The 
vicissitudes  of  the  absolute  spirit  in  the  course  of  its 
self-development  are  but  a  fantastical  description  of 
the  process  which  the  real  human  mind  experiences 
in  its  acquaintance  with  the  world  and  its  active  par- 
ticipation in  life.  Instead  of  the  evolution  of  the  ab- 
solute idea,  the  dialectics  henceforth  becomes  the  sole 
correct  method  of  thought  to  be  employed  by  the  real 
human  mind  in  the  study  of  the  actual  world  and  for 
the  purpose  of  understanding  social  development.  The 
great  and  lasting  importance  of  Hegel's  philosophy, 
even  for  our  own  time,  is  that  it  is  an  excellent  theory 
of  the  human  mind  and  of  its  working  methods,  pro- 
vided we  strip  oflf  its  transcendental  character,  and 
that  is  fai-  excels  the  first  laborious  contributions  of 
.Kant  to  the  theory  of  understanding. 


28 


INTRODUCTION 


But  this  quality  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy  could 
not  be  appreciated,  until  Dietzgen  had  created  the  ba- 
sis for  a  dialectic  and  materialistic  theory  of  under- 
standing. The  indispensable  character  of  dialectic 
thought,  which  is  illustrated  by  the  monumental  works 
of  Marx  and  Engels,  has  been  first  demonstrated  in 
a  perfectly  convincing  manner  by  Dietzgen's  critical 
analysis  of  the  human  force  of  thinking.  It  was  only 
by  means  of  this  method  of  thought— of  which  he  was 
according  to  Engels'  testimony  an  independent  dis- 
coverer— that  he  could  succeed  in  completing  the 
theory  of  understanding  and  bringing  it  to  a  close  for 
the  time  being. 

If  we  refer  to  the  ideas  laid  down  by  Dietzgen  in 
this  work  as  ''his  philosophy,"  we  say  too  much,  be- 
cause it  does  not  assume  to  be  a  new  system  of  phil- 
osophy. Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  we  should  not  say 
enough,  because  it  would  mean  that  his  work  is  as 
passing  as  the  systems  before  it.  It  is  the  merit  of 
Dietzgen  to  have  raised  philosophy  to  the  position  of 
a  natural  science,  the  same  as  Marx  did  with  history. 
The  human  faculty  of  thought  is  thereby  stripped  of 
its  fantastic  garb.  It  is  regarded  as  a  part  of  nature, 
and  by  means  of  experience  a  progressive  understand- 
ing of  its  concrete  and  ever  changing  historical  na- 
ture must  be  gained.  Dietzgen's  work  refers  to  itself 
as  a  finite  and  temporary  realization  of  this  aim,  just 
as  every  new  theory  in  natural  science  is  a  finite  and 
temporary  realization  of  its  aims.  This  realization 
must  be  further  improved  and  perfected  by  successive 
investigations.  This  is  the  method  of  natural  science; 
philosophical  systems,  on  the  contrary,  pretended  to 
give  absolute  truth,  that  could  not  be  improved  upon. 


INTRODUCTION 


29 


Dietzgen's  work  is  fundamentally  different  from  these 
former  philosophies,  and  more  than  they,  because  it 
wishes  to  be  less.  It  presents  itself  as  the  positive 
outcome  of  philosophy  toward  which  all  great  thinkers 
have  contributed,  seen  by  the  sober  eyes  of  a  socialist 
and  analyzed,  recounted  and  further  developed  by 
him.  At  the  same  time,  it  attributes  to  previous  sys- 
tems the  same  character  of  partial  truths  and  shows 
that  they  vv^ere  not  entirely  useless  speculations,  but 
ascending  stages  of  understanding  naturally  related, 
which  contain  ever  more  truth  and  ever  less  error. 
Hegel  had  likewise  entertained  this  broader  view, 
but  with  him  this  development  came  to  a  self-contra- 
dictory end  in  his  own  system.  Dietzgen  also  calls 
his  own  conception  the  highest  then  existing,  and  its 
distinctive  step  in  the  evolution  is  that  it  for  the  first 
time  adopts  and  professes  this  natural  and  scientific 
view^,  instead  of  the  supernatural  point  of  view  of  the 
former  systems.  The  new  understanding  that  the  hu- 
man mind  is  a  common  and  natural  thing  is  a  decisive 
step  in  the  progressive  investigation  of  the  mind,  and 
this  step  places  Dietzgen  at  the  head  of  this  evolu- 
tion. And  it  is  a  step  which  cannot  be  retraced,  be- 
cause it  signifies  a  sober  awakening  after  centuries  of 
vain  imaginings.  Since  this  system  does  not  pretend 
to  be  absolute  truth,  but  rather  a  finite  and  temporal 
one,  it  cannot  fall  as  its  predecessors  did.  It  repre- 
sents a  scientific  continuation  of  former  philosophies, 
just  as  astronomy  is  the  continuation  of  astrology  and 
of  the  Pythagorean  fantasies,  and  chemistry  the  con- 
tinuation of  alchemy.  It  takes  the  place  that  formerly 
w^as  held  by  its  unscientific  predecessors  and  has  this 
in  common  with  them,  apart  from  its  essential  theory 
of  understanding,  that  it  is  the  basis  of  a  new  world- 


30 


INTRODUCTION 


philosophy,   of  a  methodical  conception  of  the  uni- 


verse. 


This  modern  world-philosophy  (Weltanschauung), 
being  a  socialist  or  proletarian  one,  takes  issue  with 
the  bourgeois  conceptions;    it  was  first  conceived  as  a 
new  view  of  the  world,  entirely  opposite  to  the  ruling 
bourgeois    conceptions,    by    Marx    and    Engels,    who 
developed  its  sociological  and  historical  contents;  its 
philosophical  basis  is  here  developed  by  Dietzgen ;  its 
real  character  is  indicated  by  the  terms  dialectic  and 
materialist.      By    its    core,    historical    materialism,    it 
gains  a  wholly  new  theory  of  social  evolution  that 
forms  its  chief  content.    This  theory  was  for  the  first 
time  sketched  in  its  main  outlines  in  the  Communist 
Manifesto,  and  later  on  fully  developed  in  a  number 
of  other  works  and  thoroughly  vindicated  by  innu- 
merable facts.    It  gives  us  the  scientific  assurance  that 
the    misery    and    imperfectness    of    present    society, 
which  bourgeois  philosophy  regards  as  inevitable  and 
natural,  is  but  a  transitory  condition,  and  that  man 
will  within  measurable  time  emancipate  himself   from 
the  slavery  of  his  material  wants  by  the  regulation  of 
social  production.     By  this  certainty  socialism  is  put 
on  an  eminence  so  far  above  all  bourgeois  conceptions 
that   these    appear   barbarous    in    comparison    with    it. 
And    what    is    more  significant,    our    world-philosophy 
may  justly  claim  to  have  for  the  first  time  thrown  the 
light  of  an  indisputable  science  on  society  and  man; 
combined    with    the    maturest    products    of    natural 
sciences  it  forms  a  complete   science  of  the  world, 
making  all  superstitions   superfluous,  and  thus  involv- 
ing the  theoretical  emancipation,  that  is  to  say  the 
emaancipation   of  the   mind.     The   science   treating   of 
the  human  mind  forms  the  essence  and  foundation  of 


INTRODUCTION 


31 


this  theory  of  society  and  man,  not  only  because  it 
gives  us  the  same  as  the  natural  sciences  a  scientific 
or  experience-proven  theory  of  the  function  of  human 
thinking,  but  also,  because  this  theory  of  cognition 
can  alone  assure  us  that  such  sciences  are  able  to  fur- 
nish us  an  adequate  picture  of  the  world,  and  that  any- 
thing outside  of  them  is  mere  fantasy.  For  this  rea- 
son we  owe  to  Dietzgen's  theory  of  cognition  the  firm 
foundation  of  our  world-philosophy. 

Its  character  is  primarily  materialistic.  In  contra- 
distinction to  the  idealist  systems  of  the  most  flour- 
ishing time  of  German  philosophy  which  considered 
the  Mind  as  the  basis  of  all  existence,  it  starts  from 
concrete  materialist  being.  Not  that  it  regards  mere 
physical  matter  as  its  basis ;  it  is  rather  opposed  to  the 
crude  bourgeois  materialism,  and  matter  to  it  means 
everything  which  exists  and  furnishes  material  for 
thought,  including  thoughts  and  imaginations.  Its 
foundation  is  the  unity  of  all  concrete  being.  Thus  it 
assigns  to  the  human  mind  an  equal  place  among  the 
other  parts  of  the  universe;  it  shows  that  the  mind  is 
as  closely  connected  v^ith  all  the  other  parts  of  the  uni- 
verse as  those  parts  are  among  themselves;  that  is  to 
say,  the  mind  exists  only  as  a  part  of  the  entire  uni- 
verse so  that  its  content  is  only  the  effect  of  the  other 
parts.  Thus  our  philosophy  forms  the  theoretical  ba- 
sis of  historical  materialism.  While  the  statement 
that  "the  consciousness  of  man  is  determined  by  his 
social  life"  could  hitherto  at  best  be  regarded  as  a 
generalization  of  many  historical  facts  and  thus 
seemed  imperfect  and  open  to  criticism,  capable  of  im- 
provement by  later  discoveries,  the  same  as  all  other 
scientific  theories,  henceforth  the  complete  dependence 
of  the  mind  on  the  rest  of  the  world  becomes  as  ini- 


ISSsj'«^f«fe^iSW!i!^^»!«p**#S*"«SS 


S(IBE*9^J^^g™fe,-*i«^,i;;j43^X^ 


32 


INTRODUCTION 


pregnable  and  immutable  a  requirement  of  thought  as 
causality.  This  signifies  the  thorough  refutation  of 
the  belief  in  miracles.  After  having  been  banished 
long  ago  from  the  field  of  natural  science,  miracles 
were  now  banished  from  the  domain  of  thought. 

The  enlightening  effect  of  this  proletarian  philoso- 
phy consists  furthermore  in  its  opposition  to  all  super- 
stition and  its  demonstration  of  the  senselessness  of 
all  idol  worship.  Socialist  understanding  accomplished 
something  which  the  bourgeois  reformers  could  not 
do,  because  they  were  limited  to  natural  science  in  a 
narrow  sense  and  could  not  solve  the  mystery  of  the 
mind ;  for  in  explaining  all  the  mental,  spiritual  phenom- 
ena as  natural  phenomena  our  proletarian  philosophy  fur- 
nishes the  means  for  a  trenchant  critique  of  Christian 
faith  which  consists  in  the  belief  in  a  supernatural  spirit- 
ual being.  In  his  dialectic  discussions  of  mind  and  mat- 
ter, finiteness  and  infinity,  god  and  the  world,  Dietzgen 
has  thoroughly  clarified  the  confused  mystery  which 
surrounded  these  conceptions  and  has  definitely  re- 
futed all  transcendental  beliefs.  And  this  critique  is 
no  less  destructive  for  the  bourgeois  idols:  Freedom, 
Right,  Spirit,  Force,  which  are  show-n  to  be  but  fan- 
tastic images  of  abstract  conceptions  with  a  limited 
validity. 

This  could  be  accomplished  in  no  other  way  than 
by  simultaneously  determining,  in  its  capacity  as  a 
theory  of  understanding,  the  relation  of  the  world 
around  us  to  the  image  which  our  mind  forms  of  it. 
In  this  respect  Dietzgen  completed  the  work  begun 
by  Hume  and  Kant.  As  a  theory  of  understanding, 
his  conceptions  are  not  only  the  philosophical  basis  of 
historical  materialism,  but  also  of  all  other  sciences 
as  well.    The  thorough  critique  directed  by  Dietzgen 


« 


^^2-    ^?13 


-INTRODUCTIOI*  --"•'- •< 


against  the  works  of  prominent  natural  scientists, 
shows  that  he  was  well  aware  of  the  importance  of  his 
own  work.  But,  as  might  be  expected,  the  voice  of 
a  socialist  artisan  did  not  pefletrate  to  the  tecture  hall 
of  the  academies.  It  was  not  until  much  later  that 
similar  views  appeared  among  the  natural  scientists. 
And  now  at  last  the  most  prominent  theorists  of  nat- 
ural science  have  adopted  the  view  that  explaining  sig- 
nifies nothing  else  but  simply  and  completely  descriij- 
ing  the  processes  of  nature. 

By  this  theory  of  understanding  Dietzgen  has  made 
it   plainly  perceptible   why   the   dialectic   method   is   an 
indispensable  auxiliary  in  the  quest  for  an  explanation 
of  the  nature  of  understanding.    The  mind  is  the  fac- 
ulty of  generalization.     It  forms  out  of  concrete  real- 
ities, which  are  a  continuous  and  unbounded  stream 
in  perpetual  motion,  abstract  conceptions  that  are  es- 
sentially rigid,  bounded,    stable,    and    unchangeable. 
This  gives  rise  to  the  contradiction  that  our  concep- 
tions must  always  adapt  themselves  to  new  realities 
without  ever  fully  succeeding;  the  contradiction  that 
they  represent  the  living  by  what  is  dead,  the  infinite 
by  what  is  finite,  and  that  they  are  themselves  finite 
though  partaking  of  the  nature  of  the  infinite.     This 
contradiction  is  understood  and  reconciled  by  the  in- 
sight into  the  nature  of  the  faculty  of  understanding, 
which  is  simultaneously  a  faculty  of  combination  and  of 
distinction,  which  forms  a  limited  part  of  the  universe 
and  yet  encompasses  everything,  and  it  is  furthermore 
solved  by  the  resulting  penetration  of  the  nature  of 
the  world.    The  world  is  a  unity  of  the  infinitely  nu- 
merous multitude  of  phenomena  and  comprises  with- 
in  itself  all  contradictions,  makes  them  relative  and 
equalizes  them.     Within  its  circle  there  are  no  abso- 


/ 


INTRODUCTION 

34 

cause  it  has  not  only  the  {^^"'^^         |,  ^„i„tion  of 

,,t  also  of  ^^t:^J^X  practice  of  in- 
all  contradictions  .st^e  re  ^^^^^^^^  ^^^  ^^^^^p_ 

r  fnrr  :r  :;i- -e  t^^^^^ 

difierentiat:on  understanding,  dialectic 

By  means  of  this    heory  o  ^^^^.^^ 

n,aterialism  also  ^l''^^'^'' '^l^^J^      Kot  that  it 
of  the  riddles  of  the  world   (Weltratsei;.     i 
:  1  es  all  these  riddles;  on  the  contra;y'  U  says  e^ 
pHcitly  that  this  -ludon  c-  b    but    he  work^  ^^^^^^ 

problem,  the  solution  oi  j^    ^^„„ot 

2, -r  ;irjr™n ...  .£•- - 

in  the  person  of  Du  bois  Keym         ^  . 

snr^fetS:^ptcr.  Jir^  - 

dk  of  the  human  mind,  gives  us  the  assurance  that 

there  are  no  insoluble  riddles  before  us. 

*"l„  c  nclusion,  Dietzgen  in  this  work  in  u:atesj« 

principles  of  a  new  ethic.  ^  ^tanin^  J'  "^  ^^^^^t^^^^^ 
c;tandine  that  the  ongm  of  the  ideas  oi  guuu 

fid  in  the  needs  of  man,  and  designating  as  really 
'^    rfhat  which  is  generally  useful,  he  ^og-  y  di. 
covers  that  the  essence  of  modern  n-^^"  f  ^,f  ^  J. 
its  class  interests.     At  the  same  time,  a  ^  'aUve    us 
tification  is  accorded  to  these  temporary  ethics,  since 


INTRODUCTION 


35 


■A 


i 


they  are  the  necessary  products  of  definite  social  re- 
quirements. The  link  between  man  and  nature  is 
formed  by  the  process  of  social  production  carried  on 
for  the  satisfaction  of  man's  material  wants.  So  long 
as  this  link  was  a  fetter,  it  bound  man  by  a  misap- 
prehended supernatural  ethics.  But  once  the  process 
of  social  labor  is  understood,  regulated  and  controlled, 
then  this  fetter  is  dropped  and  the  place  of  ethics  is 
taken  by  a  reasonable  understanding  of  the  general 


wants. 


^E   ^£  ^K   ^f  ^^  vy  ^f  ^u  ^v  S^  Sc  ^^ 


The  philosophical  works  of  Dietzgen  do  not  seem 
to  have,  until  now,  exerted  any  perceptible  influence 
on  the  socialist  movement.  While  they  may  have 
found  many  a  silent  admirer  and  contributed  much  to* 
ward  a  clearing  up  of  their  thoughts,  yet  the  impor- 
tance of  his  writings  for  the  theory  of  our  movement 
has  not  been  realized.  But  this  is  not  a  matter  for 
great  surprise.  In  the  first  decade  after  their  publi- 
cation, even  the  economic  works  of  Marx,  the  value 
of  which  was  much  more  apparent,  were  little  appre- 
ciated. The  movement  developed  spontaneously,  and 
the  Marxian  theory  could  exert  a  useful  and  determin- 
ing influence  only  by  means  of  the  clear  foresight  of 
a  few  leaders.  Hence  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  philoso- 
phy of  the  proletariat,  which  is  less  easily  and  direct- 
ly applicable  than  our  economics,  did  not  receive  much 
attention.  The  political  maturity  of  the  German 
working  class,  which  was  farthest  advanced  in  the 
theories  of  the  international  movement,  did  not  de- 
velop to  the  point  of  adopting  l^Iarxian  theses  as  party 
principles,  until  after  the  abolition  of  the  anti-so- 
cialist laws.  But  even  then  they  were  for  most  of  the 
spokesmen  of  the  party  rather  concise  formulations 


INTRODUCTION 


37 


36 


INTRODUCTION 


of  a  few  practical  convictions  than  the  outcome  of  a 
thorough  scientific  training  and  understanding.  It 
was  no  doubt  the  great  expansion  of  the  party  and  o 
US  activity  which  demanded  all  their  powers  for  Us 
organization  and  management,  that  led  the  younger 
intellectuals  of  the  party  to  devote  themselves  to  prac 
tical  work  and  to  neglect  the  theoretical  studies.  Th  s 
neglect  has  bitterly  avenged  itself  in  the  theoretical 
schisms  of  the  subsequent  years.  . 

The    decrepit    condition    of    capitalism  is  now  evi- 
denced very  plainly  by  the  decay  of  the  bourgeois 
parties,  so  that  the   practical   work   of   the    socialist 
party  is  in  itself  sufficient  to  attract  every  one  who  has 
an  independent  turn  of  mind  and  a  capacity  for  deep 
feeling.    But  under  the  present  circumstances,  such  a 
transidon    was    not    accompanied    by    a    proletarian 
world-philosophy  acquired  by  painstaking  study.    In- 
stead of  such  a  philosophy,  we  are  confronted  by  a 
critique  of  socialist  science  from  the  bourgeois  stand- 
point.   Marxism  is  measured  by  the  standard  of    he 
immature  bourgeois  theory  of  understanding,  and  the 
Neokantians,  unconscious  of  the  positive  outcome  o 
philosophy  of  the  past  century,  are  trying  to  connect 
socialism  with  Kantian  ethics.    Some  even  speak  of 
a  reconciliation  with  Christianity  and  a  renunciation 

of  materialism.  

This  bourgeois  method  of  thought,  which,  being 
anti-dialectic  and  anti-materialistic,  is  opposed  to  Marx- 
ism, has  acquired  some  practical  importance  in  the  so- 
clialistic  movement  of  countries  where  by  lack  of  eco- 
nomical development  the  class-consciousness  of  the 
workers  is  hindered  by  relics  of  the  narrow-minded 
views  of  the  class  of  little  producers-as  in  France  and 
Italy  under  the  name  of    reformism.     In    Germany 


« 


' 


where  it  could  not  obtain  much  practical  importance 
it  presented  itself  mostly  as  a  theoretical  struggle 
against  Marxism  under  the  name  of  revisionism.  It 
combines  bourgeois  philosophy  and  anti-capitalist  dis- 
position and  takes  the  place  formerly  occupied  by  an- 
archism, and,  like  anarchism,  it  ag^in  represents  in 
many  respects  the  little  bourgeois  tendencies  in  the 
light  against  capitalism.  Under  these  circumstances, 
a  closer  study  of  Deitzgen's  philosophical  works  be- 
comes a  necessity. 

Marx  has  disclosed  the  nature  of  the  social  process 
of  production,  and  its  fundamental  significance  as  a 
lever  of  social  development.  But  he  has  not  fully 
explained,  by  what  means  the  nature  of  the  human 
mind  is  involved  in  this  material  process.  Owing  to 
the  great  traditional  influence  exerted  by  bourgeois 
thought,  this  weak  spot  in  Marxism  is  one  of  the  main 
reasons  for  the  incomplete  and  erroneous  understand- 
ing of  Marxian  theories.  This  shortcoming  of  Marxism 
is  cured  by  Dietzgen,  who  made  the  nature  of  the  mind 
the  special  object  of  his  investigations.  For  this  reason, 
a  thorough  study  of  Dietzgen's  philosophical  writings  is 
an  important  and  indispensable  auxiliary  for  the  under- 
standing of  the  fundamental  works  of  Marx  and  En- 
gels.  Dietzgen's  work  demonstrates  that  the  proleta- 
riat has  a  mighty  weapon  not  only  in  proletarian 
economics,  but  also  in  proletarian  philosophy.  Let  us 
learn  to  wield  these  weapons ! 

ANTON  PANNEKOEK. 
Leyden,  Holland,  December,  1902. 


The  Nature  of  Human  Brain  Work 

A  Renewed  Critique  of  Pure  and 
Practical  Reason 


BY  A  MANUAL  WORKER 
Translated  by  Ernest  Untermann 


r-^ 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN 
BRAIN  WORK 


PREFACE 

It  may  not  be  amiss  here  to  say  a  few  words  to  the 
kind  reader  and  the  unkind  critic  in  regard  to  the  per- 
sonal relation  of  the  author  to  the  present  work.  The 
first  objection  which  I  anticipate  will  be  aimed  at  my 
lack  of  scientific  learning  which  is  shown  indirectly 
rather,  between  the  lines,  than  in  the  work  itself. 
*'How  dare  you,"  I  ask  myself,  "come  before  the  pub- 
lic with  your  statements  on  a  subject,  which  has  been 
treated  by  such  heroes  of  science  as  Aristotle,  Kant, 
Fichte,  Hegel,  etc.,  without  being  thoroughly  familiar 
with  all  the  works  of  your  famous  predecessors?" 

At  best,  will  you  not  merely  repeat  what  has  long 
since  been  accom-plished? 

In  reply,  I  wish  to  say  that  the  seeds  sown  by 
philosophy  in  the  soil  of  science  have  long  since  blos- 
somed and  borne  fruit.  The  product  of  history  devel- 
ops historically,  grows  and  passes  away,  in  order  to 
live  eternally  in  another  form.  The  original  deed,  the 
original  work,  is  fertile  only  in  the  contact  with  the 
conditions  and  relations  of  the  time  in  which  it  is  born. 
But  it  finally  becomes  an  empty  shell,  when  it  has 
yielded  its  kernel  to  history.  Whatever  of  a  positive 
nature  was  produced  by  the  science  of  the  past,  lives 

41 


42 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN   BRAIX   WORK 


PREFACE 


43 


no  longer  in  the  words  of  the  author,  but  has  become 
more  than  spirit,  has  become  flesh  and  blood  in  pres- 
ent science.  In  order,  e.  g.,  to  know  the  products  of 
physics  and  produce  something  new  in  its  field,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  first  study  the  history  of  this  science, 
nor  derive  the  hitherto  discovered  laws  from  their 
fundamental  source.  On  the  contrary,  historical  re- 
search might  only  be  an  obstacle  to  the  solution  of  a 
definite  physical  problem,  for  concentrated  strength 
will  naturally  accomplish  more  than  divided  strength. 
In  this  sense,  I  consider  my  lack  of  other  knowledge 
an  advantage,  because  I  am  thus  enabled  to  devote  my- 
self so  much  more  intensely  to  my  special  object.  I 
have  striven  hard  to  study  this  object  and  to  learn 
everything  which  is  known  about  it  in  my  time.  The 
history  of  philosophy  has  in  a  certain  sense  been  re- 
peated in  the  development  of  my  individuality,  since 
I  speculated  from  my  earliest  youth  on  the  means  of 
satisfying  my  longing  for  a  consistent  and  systematic 
conception  of  the  world,  and  I  believe  I  have  finally 
found  this  satisfaction  in  the  inductive  understanding 
of  the  human  faculty  of  thought. 

Note  that  it  is  not  the  faculty  of  thought  in  its  va- 
rious manifestations,  not  the  diflferent  forms  of  it,  but 
its  general  form,  its  general  nature,  that  satisfied  me 
and  that  I  propose  to  discuss.  My  object  is  then  very 
plain  and  circumscribed,  indeed  it  is  so  simple,  that 
I  had  difficulties  in  showing  its  nature  from  diflferent 
points  of  view  and  was  compelled  to  resort  to  numerous 
repetitions.  At  the  same  time,  the  question  concern- 
ing the  nature  of  the  mind  is  a  popular  one,  which  is 
not  limited  to  professional  philosophy,  but  concerns 
all  sciences.  And  whatever  the  history  of  science  has 
contributed  towards  the  solution  of  this  question,  must 


be  generally  alive  in  the  scientific  conceptions  of  the 
present.    I  could  well  be  satisfied  with  this  source. 

I  may,  then,  confess  in  spite  of  my  authorship,  that 
I  am  not  a  professor  of  philosophy,  but  a  mechanic  by 
profession.  If  any  one  should  feel  justified  in  telling 
me:  "Shoemaker,  stick  to  your  last!"  I  would  reply 
to  him  with  Karl  Marx :  "Your  non  plus  ultra  profes- ' 
sional  wisdom  became  enormously  foolish  from  the 
moment  when  the  watchmaker  Watt  invented  the 
steam  engine,  the  barber  Arkwright  the  loom,  the  jew- 
eler Fulton  the  steamship."  Without  classing  myself 
among  these  great  men,  I  can  strive  to  emulate  them. 
Besides,  the  nature  of  my  object  is  especially  pertinent 
to  the  class,  a  member  of  which  I  have  the  pleasure, 
if  not  the  honor,  of  being. 

I  treat  in  this  work  of  the  faculty  of  thought  as 
the  organ  of  the  general.     The   oppressed   fourth  es- 
tate, the  working  class,  is  the  true  exponent  of  this  or- 
gan, the  ruling  classes  being  prevented  by  their  spe- 
cial class  interests  from  recognizing  the  demands  of 
general  reason.     Our  first  consideration  is,  of  course, 
the  relation  of  our  object  to  human  conditions.    How- 
ever, so  long  as  conditions  are  not  equalized  for  men 
in  general,  but  vitiated  by  class  interests,  our  view  of 
things  is  influenced  by  these  class  limitations.    A  truly 
objective   understandings  requires   a   subjective   theo- 
retical  freedom.     Before   Copernicus   saw  the   Earth 
was  moving  and  the  Sun  stationary,  he  had  to  place 
himself  outside  of  his  terrestrial  standpoint.    The  fac- 
ulty of  thought,  having  all  relations  for  its  object, 
must    abstract    from  all  of  them  in  order  to  grasp  its 
own  real  nature.    Since  we  can  understand  things  only 
by  means  of  thought,  we  must  abstract  from  every- 
thing in  order  to  understand  thought  in  general.    This 


n 


44 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


task  was  too  difficult,  so  long  as  man  was  bound  to 
some  limited  class  standpoint.    Not  until  historical  de- 
velopment has  proceeded  lo  the  point  of  striving  at 
dissolution  of  the  last  society  based  on  a  ruling  and  a 
serving  class,  can  prejudices  be  overcome  to  the  ex- 
tent of  enabling  the  faculty  of  understanding  to  grasp 
the  nature  of  human  brain  activity  in  the  abstract.     It 
is  only  a  historical  movement  aiming  at  the  direct  and 
general  liberty  of  the  masses,  the  new  era  of  the  fourth 
estate  based  on  much  misunderstood  premises,  which 
can  dispense  with  the  spirit  cult  sufficiently  to  be  en- 
abled to  expose  the  real  author  of  every  spook,  the 
"pure"  mind.    The  man  of  the  fourth  estate  represents 
at  last  the  "pure"  man.     His  interests  are  no  longer 
mere  class  interests,  but  mass  interests,  interests  of  hu- 
manity.   This  indicates  that  we  are  now  approaching 
the  end  of  a  development  in  which  the  interests  of  the 
mass  were  dependent  on  the  interests  of  a  ruling  class 
and  in  which  humanity  made  progress  not  so  much  in 
spite  of  as  by  means  of  continuous  oppression  by  Jew- 
ish patriarchs,  Asiatic  conquerors,  antique  slaveholders, 
feudal  barons,  guildmasters,  modern  capitalists  and  even 
capitalist  Caesars.    The  class  conditions  of  the  past  were 
inevitable  in  the  general  development.     Now  this  devel- 
opment has  arrived  at  a  point  where  the  mass  becomes 
conscious  of  itself.    ^lan  has  hitherto  developed  by  class 
antagonism.     By  this  means  he  has  now  arrived  at  the 
point  where  he  wants   to  develop  himself  consciously. 
Class  antagonisms  were  phenomena  of  humanity.     The 
working  class  strives  to  abolish  class  antagonism  in  order 
that  humanity  itself  may  be  a  truth. 

Just  as  the  Reformation  was  conditioned  on  the  actual 
environment  of  the  sixteenth  century,  so,  like  the  discov- 
ery of  the  electric  telegraph,  the  research  of  the  theory 


PREFACE 


45 


of  human  understanding  is  based  on  the  actual  conditions 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  To  this  extent  the  contents 
of  this  little  work  are  not  an  individual,  but  a  historical 
product.  In  writing  it,  I  feel  myself,  if  I  may  use 
this  mystic  phrase,  as  a  mere  organ  of  the  idea.  Only 
the  form  of  presenting  the  subject  is  mine,  and  I  beg 
the  kind  reader  to  judge  it  leniently.  I  ask  that  the 
reader  may  direct  his  or  her  silent  or  loud  objections,  not 
against  the  form,  but  against  the  substance  of  my  re- 
marks, not  to  cling  to  the  letter,  but  to  understand  the 

spirit  of  my  words. 

If  I  should  not  succeed  in  developing  the  idea,  and  if 
my  voice  should  thus  be  drowned  in  the  hubbub  of 
our  overstocked  book  market,  I  am  nevertheless  certain 
that  the  cause  itself  will  f^nd  a  more  talented  champion. 

Joseph  Dietzgen,  Tanner. 

SiEGBURG,  May  15, 1869. 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN 
BRAIN  WORK 


I. 


INTRODUCTION 

Systematization  is  the  essence  and  the  general  ex- 
pression of  the  aggregate  activity  of  science.  Science 
seeks  to  classify  and  systematize  the  objects  of  the  world 
for  the  understanding  of  our  brain.  The  scientific  under- 
standing of  a  certain  language,  e.  g.,  requires  an  orderly 
arrangement  of  that  language  in  general  categories  and 
rules.  The  science  of  agriculture  does  not  simply  wish 
to  produce  a  good  crop  of  potatoes,  but  to  find  a  system 
for  the  methods  of  cultivation  and  thus  to  furnish  the 
knowledge  by  which  success  in  cultivation  can  be  de- 
termined beforehand.  The  practical  result  of  all  theory 
is  to  acquaint  us  with  the  system  and  method  of  its  prac- 
tice and  thus  to  enable  us  to  act  in  this  world  with  a 
reasonable  certainty  of  success.  Experience  is,  of  course, 
an  indispensable  condition  for  this  purpose;  but  it  alone 
is  not  sufficient.  Only  by  means  of  empirically  developed 
theories,  by  science;,  do  we  overcome  the  play  of  acci- 
dent. Science  gives  us  the  conscious  domination  over 
things  and  unconditional  security  in  handling  them. 

No  one  individual  can  know  everything.    The  capacity 
of   the  individual   brain   is   no  more   adequate   for   the 

47 


48 


THE  NATURF^  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


I 


INTRODUCTION 


49 


knowledge  of  everything  that  is  necessary  than  he  skill 
and  strength  of  the  individual's  hands  are  sufficient  to  pro- 
duce all  he  needs.  Faith  is  indispensable  to  man  but 
onlv  faith  in  that  which  others  know,  not  in  what  they 
believe.  Science  is  as  much  a  social  matter  as  material 
production.    "One  for  all  and  all  for  one." 

But  just  as  there  are  some  wants  ot  the  body 
which  every  one  has  to  satisfy  by  himself,  so  every 
one  has  to  know  certain  scientific  facts  which  are  not 
the  prerogative  of  any  special  science. 

This  is  true  of  the  faculty  of  human  understanding. 
The  knowledge  and  study  of  this  theory  cannot  be 
left  to  any  particular  guild.  Lassalle  justly  says: 
"Thinking  itself  has  become  a  special  trade  in  these 
days  of  division  of  labor,  and  it  has  fallen  into  the 
worst  hands,  those  of  our  newspaper  writers.  He 
thus  urges  us  not  to  acquiesce  in  this  appropriation 
any  longer,  not  to  submitany  more  to  the  harangues 
of  public  opinion,  but  to  resume  thinking  for  our- 
selves We  may  leave  certain  objects  of  scientific  re- 
search to  professionals,  but  general  thought  is  a  pub- 
lic matter  which  every  one  should  be  required  to  at- 

tend  to  himself.  .    i  •  ,  • 

If  we  could  place  this  general  work  of  thinking 
on  a  scientific  basis,  if  we  could  find  a  theory  of  gen- 
eral thought,  if  we  were  able  to  discover  the  means 
by  which  reason  arrives  at  understanding,  if  we  could 
develop  a  method  by  which  truth  is  produced  scien- 
tifically, then  we  should  acquire  for  science  in  general 
and  for  our  individual  faculty  of  judgment  the  same 
certainty  of  success  which  we  already  possess  in  spe- 
cial fields  of  science. 

Kant  says:     "If  it  is  not  possible  to  harmonize  the 


various  co-operators  on  the  question  of  the  means  by 
which  their  common  aim  is  to  be  accomplished,  then 
we  may  safely  infer  that  such  a  study  is  not  yet  on 
the  secure  road  of  science,  but  will  continue  to  grope 
in  the  dark." 

Now,  if  we  take  a  look  at  the  sciences,  we  find 
that  there  are  many,  especially  among  the  natural 
sciences,  which  fulfill  the  requirements  of  Kant,  agree- 
ing unanimously  and  consciously  on  certain  empirical 
knowledge  and  building  further  understanding  on 
that.  "There  we  know,"  as  Liebig  says,  "what  is  to 
be  called  a  certain  fact,  a  conclusion,  a  rule,  a  law. 
We  have  touchstones  for  all  this,  and  every  one 
makes  use  of  them  before  making  known  the  fruits  of 
his  labors.  The  attempt  to  maintain  any  proposition 
by  lawyer's  tricks,  or  the  intention  to  make  others  be- 
lieve anything  that  cannot  be  proven,  are  immediately 
wrecked  by  the  ethics  of  science." 

Not  so  in  other  fields,  where  concrete  and  material 
things  are  left  behind  and  abstract,  so-called  philoso- 
phical, matters  are  taken  up,  as,  for  instance,  questions 
of  general  conceptions  of  the  world  and  of  life,  of  be- 
ginning and  end,  of  the  semblance  and  the  essence  of 
things,  of  cause  and  effect,  of  matter  and  force,  of 
might  and  right,  of  wisdom  of  life,  of  morality,  relig- 
ion, and  politics.  Here  we  find,  instead  of  irrefutable 
proofs,  mere  "lawyer's  tricks,"  an  absence  of  reliable 
knowledge,  a  mere  groping  amid  contradictory  opin- 
ions. 

And  it  is  precisely  the  prominent  authorities  of 
natural  science  who  show  by  their  disagreements  on 
such  matters  that  they  are  mere  tyros  in  philosophy. 
It  follows,  then,  that  the  socalled  ethics  of  science,  the 


1 


50 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 


touchstones    of    which    the    boast    is    made    that    they 
never  fail  in  determining  what  is  knowledge  and  what 
is  mere  conjecture,  are  based  on  a  purely  instinctive 
practice,  not  on  a  conscious  theory  of  understandmg. 
Although   our   time   excels  in   diligent    scientific    re- 
search, yet  the  numerous  differences  among  scientists 
show  that  they  are  not  capable  of  using  their  knowl- 
edge with  a  predetermined  certainty  of  success.  Other- 
wise, how  could  misunderstandings  arise?    Whoever 
understands  understanding,  cannot  misunderstand.    It 
is  only  the  absolute  accuracy  of  astronomical  compu- 
tations which  entitles  astronomy  to  the  name  of  a 
science.     A  man  who  can  figure  is  at  least  enabled 
to  test  whether  his  computation  is  right  or  wrong.    In 
the  same  way,  the  general  understanding  of  the  pro- 
cess of  thought  must  furnish  us  with  the  touchstone 
by  which  we  can  distinguish  between  understanding 
and    misunderstanding,    knowledge    and     conjecture, 
truth  and  error,  by  general  and  irrefutable  rules.     Er- 
ring is  human,  but  not  scientific.    Science  being  a  hu- 
man matter,  errors  may  exist  eternally,  but  the  under- 
standing of  the  process  of  thought  will  enable  us  quite 
as  well  to  prevent  errors  from  being  offered  and  ac- 
cepted  as    scientific   truths   as   an    understanding    of 
mathematics  enables  us  to  eliminate  errors  from  our 
computations. 

It  sounds  paradoxical  and  yet  it  is  true:  Whoever 
knows  the  general  rule  by  which  error  may  be  dis- 
tinguished from  truth,  and  knows  it  as  well  as  the 
rule  in  grammar  by  wdiich  a  noun  is  distinguished 
from  a  verb,  will  be  able  to  distinguish  in  both  cases 
with  equal  certainty.  Scientists  as  well  as  scribes 
have  ever  embarrassed  one  another  by  the  question: 


INTRODUCTION 


51 


What  is  truth?  This  question  has  been  an  essential 
object  of  philosophy  for  thousands  of  years.  This 
question,  like  philosophy  itself,  is  finally  settled  by 
the  understanding  of  the  faculty  of  human  thought. 
In  other  words,  the  question  of  what  constitutes  truth 
is  identical  with  the  question  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween truth  and  error.  Philosophy  is  the  science 
which  has  been  engaged  in  solving  this  riddle,  and  the 
final  solution  of  the  riddle  by  the  clear  understanding 
of  the  process  of  thought  also  solves  the  question  of 
the  nature  of  philosophy.  Hence  a  short  glance  at 
the  nature  and  development  of  philosophy  may  well 
serve  as  an  introduction  to  our  study. 

As  the  word  philosophy  is  connected  w^ith  various 
meanings,  I  state  at  the  outset  that  I  am  referring 
only  to  socalled  speculative  philosophy.  I  dispense 
with  frequent  quotations  and  notes  of  the  sources  of 
my  knowledge,  as  anything  that  I  may  say  in  this 
respect  is  so  well  established  that  we  can  afford  to  dis- 
card all  scientific  by-work. 

If  we  apply  the  above-named  test  of  Kant  to  specu- 
lative philosophy  it  appears  to  be  more  the  playground 
of  different  opinions  than  of  science.  The  philoso- 
phical celebrities  and  classic  authorities  are  not  even 
in  accord  on  the  question:  What  is  philosophy  and 
what  is  its  aim?  For  this  reason,  and  in  order  not  to 
increase  the  difference  by  adding  my  own  opinion,  I 
regard  everything  as  philosophy  that  calls  itself  by 
that  name,  and  we  select  from  the  voluminous  litera- 
ture of  philosophy  that  which  is  common  and  general 
in  all  philosophers,  without  taking  any  notice  of  their 
special  peculiarities. 

By  this  empirical  method  we  find  fiist  of  all  that 


I 


52  THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BILMN  WORK 

philosophy  is  originally  not  a  ^P^^^^^^^f  J^^f^^"^ 
working  with  other  sciences,  but  a  generic  na^..efo 
all  knowledge,  the  essence  of  all  science  just  as  a  t  i 
the  essence  of  the  various  arts.  Whoever  made 
knowledge,  whoever  made  brain  work  his  essential 
occupation,  every  thinker  without  regard  to  the  con- 
tents of  his  thoughts,  was  originally  a  philosopher. 

But  when  with  the  progressive  increase  of  human 
knowledge,  the  various  departments  detached  them- 
selves from  the  mother  of  all  wisdom,  especially  since 
the   origin   of  natural   sciences,    philosophy    became 
known,  not  so  much  by  its  content  as  by  its  form.    All 
other  sciences  are  distinguished  by  their  various  ob- 
jects, while  philosophy  is  marked  by  its  own  method. 
Of  course,  it  also  has  its  object  and  purpose.     It  de- 
sires to  understand  the  universal  whole,  the  cosmos. 
But  it  is  not  this  object,  this  aim,  by  which  phdoso- 
phy  is  characterized ;  it  is  rather  the  manner  in  which 
this  object  is  accomplished.  ^ 

All  other  sciences  occupy  themselves  with  special 
things,  and  if  they  consider  the  universe  at  all,  they 
do  so  only  in  its  bearing  on  the  special  objects  of  their 
study,  the  parts  of  which  the  universe  is  composed. 
Alexander  von  Humboldt  says  in  his  introduction  to 
his  "Cosmos"  that  he  is  limiting  himself  to  an  empiri- 
cal consideration,  to  a  physical  research,  which  seeks 
to   elucidate   the    uniformity    and    unity   by    means    of 
the  great  variety.     And  all  inductive  sciences  arrive 
at  general  conclusions  and  conceptions  only  by  way 
of  their  occupation  with  special  and  concrete  things. 
For  this  reason  they  claim  that  their  conclusions   are 

based  on  facts. 

Speculative  philosophy  proceeds  by  the   opposite 


INTRODUCTION 


53 


.. 


method.     Thought,  the  object  of  its  study,  may  be 
some  special  question,  yet  it  does  not  follow  this  up 
in  the  concrete.     It  rejects  as  fallacious  the  evidence 
of  the  senses,  the  physical  experience  gained  by  means 
of  the  eye  and  ear,  hand  and(brain,)and  limits  itself  to 
''pure"    and    absolutely    abstract    thought,    in    order    to 
understand  thus  by  the  unit  of  human  reason  the  mul- 
tiplicity of  the  universe.    In  seeking  for  an  answer  to 
the  question:     What  is  philosophy?  which   question 
we    are    specially    discussing    just    now,    speculative 
philosophy  would  not  start  out  from  its  actual  mate- 
rial form,  from  its  wooden  and  pigskin  volumes,  from 
its  great  and  small  essays,  in  order  to  arrive  at  a  con- 
ception of  its  object.    On  the  contrary,  the  speculative 
philosopher  turns  to  introspection  and  looks  in  the 
depths  of  his  own  mind  for  the  true  concept  of  phi- 
losophy.    And  by  this  standard  he  separates  the  im- 
pression of  his  senses  into  true  or  erroneous.     This 
speculative  method  has  hardly  ever  dealt  in  tangible 
things,  unless  we  recognize  this  philosophical  method 
in  every  unscientific  concept  of  nature  which  popu- 
lated the  world  with  spooks.    The  rudiments  of  scien- 
tific speculation  occasionally  dealt  with  the  course  of 
the  sun  and  the  globe.    But  since  inductive  astronomy 
cultivates  these  fields  with  greater  success,  speculative 
philosophy    limits   itself   entirely   to   abstract   discus- 
sions.    And  in  this  line  of  research  as  well  as  in  all 
others  it  is  characterized  by  the  production  of  its  re- 
sults out  of  the  idea  or  the  concept. 

For  empirical  science,  for  the  inductive  method, 
the  multiplicity  of  experiences  is  the  first  basis,  and 
thought  the  second.  Speculative  philosophy,  on  the 
other  hand,  seeks  to  arrive  at  scientific  truth  without 


? 


54  THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 

th:^  help  Of  experience.     It  rejects  the  socalled  tran- 
sient facts  as  a  foundation  of  philosophical  understand- 
ng    and  declares  that  it  should  be  absolute    exa  ted 
above  time  and  space.     Speculative  philosophy  does 
not  wish  to  be  scientific  physics,  but  metaphysics.    I 
regards  it  as  its  task  to  find  by  "pure     reason    and 
without  the  assistance  of  experience,  a  system,  a  logic 
or  a  theory  of   science,  by  which  everything  worth 
knowing  is  supposed  to  be  reeled  off  logically  and  sys- 
tematically, in  about  the  same  way  in  which  we  de- 
rive grammatically  the  various  forms  of  a  word  from 
its  root.     But  the  phvsical   sciences  operate  on   the 
assumption  that  our  faculty  of  understanding,  to  use 
a  familiar  illustration,  resembles  a  piece  of  soft  wax 
which  receives  impressions  from  outside,  or  a  clean 
slate  on  which  experience  writes  its  lines.     Specula- 
tive philosophv,  on  the  other  hand,  assumes  that  cer- 
tain ideas  are  innate  and  may  be  dipped  and  produced 
from  the  depths  of  the  mind  by  means  of  thought. 

The  diflference  between  speculative  and  inductive 
science  is  that  between  fantasy  and  sound  common 
sense.    The  latter  produces  its  ideas  by  means  of  the 
outer  world,  by  the  help  of  experience,  while  fantasy 
gets   its  product   from  the  depth  of  the   mind,  out  of 
itself.    But  this  method  of  production  is  only  seeming- 
ly one-sided.     A  thinker   can   no   more   think  trans- 
cendental thoughts  which  are  beyond  the  reach  of  ex- 
perience,  than   a   painter   can   invent   transcendental 
pictures,  transcendental  forms.     Just  as  fantasy  cre- 
ates angels  by  a  combination  of  man  and  bird,  or  mer- 
maids by  a  composition  of  woman  and  fish,  so  all  other 
products  of  fantasy,  though  seemingly  derived  out  of 
itself,  are  in  fact  only  arbitrarily  ananged  impressions 


I 


I, 


INTRODUCTION 


55 


of  the  outer  world.  Reason  operates  with  numbers 
and  orders,  time  and  measures,  and  other  means  of 
experience,  while  fantasy  reproduces  the  experiences 
without  regard  to  law  and  in  an  arbitrary  form. 

The  longing  for  knowledge  has  been  the  cause  of 
speculative  attempts  to  explain  the  phenomena  of 
life  and  nature  at  a  time  when  lack  of  experience  and 
observation  made  inductive  understanding  impossi- 
ble. Experience  was  then  supplemented  by  specula- 
tion. In  later  times,  when  experience  had  grown, 
previous  speculation  was  generally  recognized  as  er- 
roneous. But  it  nevertheless  required  thousands  of 
years  of  repeated  disappointments  on  one  side  and 
numerous  brilliant  successes  of  the  inductive  method 
on  the  other,  before  these  speculative  hobbies  came 

into  disfavor. 

Fantasy  has  certainly  a  positive  power,  and 
speculative  intuition,  derived  from  analogy,  very  often 
precedes  empirical  and  inductive  understanding.  But 
we  must  remain  aware  of  the  fact  that  so  much  is 
assumption  and  so  much  actual  scientific  knowledge. 
Conscious  intuition  stimulates  scientific  research, 
while  pseudo-science  closes  the  door  to  inductive  re- 
search. The  acquisition  of  the  clear  understanding  of 
the  distinction  between  speculation  and  knowledge  is 
a  historical  process,  the  beginning  and  end  of  which 
coincides  with  the  beginning  and  end  of  speculative 

philosophy.  . 

In  ancient  times,  common  sense  operated  in  com- 
mon with  fantasy,  the  inductive  with  the  speculative 
method.  The  discussion  of  their  dififerences  begins 
only  with  the  understanding  of  the  numerous  disap- 
pointments caused  by  the  still  inexperienced  judgment 


5G 


THE   NATURE  OF   HUMAN   BRAIN   WORK 


which  have  prevented  an  unobstructed  view  of  the  ques- 
tion up  to  modern  times.     But  instead  of  attnbutmg 
these   disappointments   to   lack   of   understandmg,   they 
were   charged   to   the   account   of   the    imperfection   of 
the  senses.    The  senses  were  called  impostors  and  ma- 
terial phenomena  untrue  images.     Who  has  not  heard 
the  lament  about  the  unreliability  of  the  senses?    The 
misunderstanding  of  nature  and  of  its  phenomena  led 
to   a   serious    rupture    with    sense   perceptions.     The 
philosophers  had  deceived  themselves  and  thought  they 
had  been  deceived  by  the  senses.    In  their  anger  they 
turned  disdainfully   away   from  the  world  of  sensa- 
tions.   With  the  same  uncritical  faith  with  which  the 
semblance  had  hitherto  been  accepted  as  truth,  now 
uncritical  doubt  rejected  the  truth  of  sensations  al- 
together.   Research  abandoned  nature  and  experience, 
and  began  the  work  of    speculative    philosophy    by 

*'pure"  thought. 

But  no!  Science  did  not  permit  itself  to  be  entirely 
led  astrav  from  the  path  of  common  sense,  from  the 
way  of  truth  of  sense  perceptions.  Natural  science 
soon  stepped  into  the  breach,  and  its  brilliant  suc- 
cesses gained  for  the  inductive  method  the  conscious- 
ness of  its  fertility,  while  on  the  other  hand  philoso- 
phy searched  for  a  system  by  which  all  the  great  gen- 
eral truths  might  be  opened  up  without  specialized 
study,  without  sense  perception  and  observation,  by 

mere  reason  alone. 

Now  we  have  a  more  than  sufficient  quantity  of 
such  speculative  systems.  If  we  measure  them  with 
the  aforementioned  standard  of  unanimousness,  we 
find  that  philosophy  agrees  only  on  its  disagreements. 
In  consequence,  the  history  of  speculative  philosophy, 


INTRODUCTION 


57 


unlike  the  history  of  other  sciences,  consists  less  of  a 
gradual  accumulation  of  knowledge,  than  of  a  series 
of  unsuccessful  attempts  to  solve  the  general  riddles 
of  nature  and  life  by  "pure"  thought,  without  the  help 
of  the  objects  and  experience  of  the  outer  world.  The 
most  daring  attempt  in  this  line,  the  most  artificial 
structure  of  thought,  w^as  completed  by  Hegel  in  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  To  use  a  com- 
mon expression,  he  became  as  famous  in  the  world  of 
science  as  Napoleon  I  did  in  the  world  of  politics. 
But  Hegelian  philosophy  has  not  stood  the  test  of 
time.  Haym,  in  his  work  entitled  "Hegel  and  His 
Time,"  says  of  Hegelian  philosophy  that  "it  was 
pushed    aside  by  the  progress  of  the  world  and  by 

living  history." 

The  outcome  of  philosophy  up  to  that  time,"  then, 
was  a  declaration  of  its  own  impotence.  Nevertheless, 
we  do  not  underestimate  the  fact  that  a  w^ork  occupy- 
ing the  best  brains  for  thousands  of  years  surely  con- 
tained some  positive  element.  And  in  fact,  specula- 
tive philosophy  has  a  history,  which  is  not  merely  a 
series  of  unsuccessful  attempts,  but  also  a  living  devel- 
opment. However,  it  is  less  the  object  of  its  study, 
less  the  logical  world  system,  which  developed,  than  its 

method. 

Every  positive  science  has  a  material  object,  a 
beginning  in  the  outer  world,  a  premise  on  which  its 
understanding  is  based.  Every  empirical  science  has 
for  its  fundament  some  material  of  the  senses,  some 
given  object,  on  which  its  understanding  is  depend- 
ent, and  thus  it  becomes  "impure."  Speculative  phi- 
losophy seeks  a  "pure,  absolute,"  understanding.  It 
wishes  to  understand  by  "pure"  reason,  without  any 


J 


58 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


material,   without   any   experience.     It   takes   its   de- 
parture from  the  enthusiastic  conviction  of  the  supe- 
riority of   understanding  and   knowledge   over   expe- 
rience gained  by  sense  perceptions.     For  this  reason 
it  washes  to  leave  experience  entirely  aside  in  favor  of 
absolutely  ''pure"  understanding.     Its  object  is  truth; 
not  concrete  truth,  not  the  truth  of  this  or  that  thing, 
but  truth  in  general,  truth  "in  itself."    The  speculative 
systems  seek  after  an  absolute  beginning,  an  indubita- 
bly self-supporting  starting  point,  from   which   they 
may  determine  the  absolutely  indubitable.    The  spec- 
ulative systems  are  thus  by  their  own  mentality  per- 
fectly  complete    and    selfsufficient    systems.      Every 
speculative  system  found  its   end  in  the  subsequent 
knowledge     that     its     totality,     its     selfsufficiency,     its 
absoluteness,    was    imaginary,    that    it    could    be    de- 
termined    empirically    and     externally     like    all     other 
knowledge,     that     it     was     not     a     philosophical     sys- 
tem, but  a  relative  and  empirical  attempt  at  under- 
standing. Speculation  finally  dissolved  into  the  knowl- 
edge that  understanding  is  by  its  very  nature  "im- 
pure," that  the  organ  of  philosophy,  the  faculty  of  un- 
derstanding cannot  begin  its  studies  without  a  given 
point  of  departure,  that  science  is  not  absolutely  su- 
perior to  experience,  but  only  so  far  as  it  can  organize 
numerous  experiences.     It  followed  from  these  prem- 
ises that  the  object  of  philosophy  can  be  a  general  and 
objective  understanding,  or  ''truth  in  itself,"  only  in 
so  far  as  understanding  or  truth   in  general  can  be 
derived  from  given  concrete  objects.     In  plain  words, 
speculative  philosophy  was  reduced  to  the   unphilo- 
sophical   science   of  the    empirical   faculty  of   under- 
standing, to  the  critique  of  reason. 


INTRODUCTION 


69 


Modern  conscious  speculation  takes  its  departure 
from  the  experienced  difference  between  semblance 
and  truth.  It  denies  all  sense  phenomena  in 
order  to  find  truth  by  thinking,  without  being  de- 
ceived by  any  semblance.  The  subsequent  philoso- 
phers, however,  found  every  time  that  the  truths  of 
their  predecessors,  gained  by  this  method,  were  not 
what  they  pretended  to  be,  but  that  their  positive  re^ 
suit  consisted  simply  in  having  advanced  the  science 
of  the  thought  process  to  a  certain  extent.  By  deny- 
ing the  actuality  of  the  senses,  by  endeavoring  to  sep- 
arate thought  from  all  sense  perceptions,  by  isolating 
it,  so  to  say,  from  its  sensory  cover,  speculative  philoso- 
phy, more  than  any  other  science^  laid  bare  the  structure 
of  the  mind.  The  more  this  philosophy  advanced  in  time, 
the  more  it  developed  in  its  historical  course,  the  more 
classically  and  strikingly  did  this  kernel  of  its  work 
spring  into  view.  After  the  repeated  creation  of  giant 
fantasmagorias,  it  found  its  solution  in  the  positive 
knowledge  that  socalled  pure  philosophical  thought, 
abstracting  from  all  concrete  contents,  is  nothing  but 
thoughtless  thought,  thought  without  any  real  object 
back  of  it,  and  produces  mere  fantasmagorias.  This 
process  of  speculative  deception  and  scientific  ex- 
posure was  continued  up  to  recent  times.  Finally  the 
solution  of  the  main  question,  and  the  solution  of  spec- 
ulation, was  introduced  wnth  the  following  words  of 
Feuerbach:     "My  philosophy  is  no  philosophy." 

The  long  story  of  speculative  work  was  finally  re- 
duced to  the  understanding  of  reason,  of  the  intel- 
lect, the  mind,  to  the  exposure  of  those  mysterious 
operations  which  we  call  thinking. 

The  secret  of  the  processes  by  which  the  truths  of 


i 


il! 


60 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BIL\IN  WORK 


understanding  are  produced,  the  ignorance  of  the  fact 
that  every  thought  requires  an  object,  a  premise,  was 
the  cause  of  the  idle  speculative  wanderings  which  we  find 
registered  in  the  history  of  philosophy.     The  same 
secret  is  today  the  cause  of  those  numerous  specula- 
tive mistakes  which  we  observe  in  passing  over  the 
words  and  works  of  naturalists.    Their  knowledge  and 
understanding  is  far  developed,  but  only  so  far  as  it 
refers  to  tangible  objects.     The  moment  they  touch 
upon  abstract  discussions,  they  ofifer  ''lawyers'  proofs" 
in  place  of  "objective  facts."    For  although  they  know 
intuitively  and  in  a  concrete  case  that  this  is  a  truth, 
that  a  conclusion,  and  that  a  rule,  they  do  not  apply 
this   knowledge   in   general   with   consciousness    and 
theoretical    consistency.      The    successes    of    natural 
science  have  taught  them  to  operate  the  instrument 
of  thought,  the  mind,  instinctively.     But  they  lack  the 
systematic  understanding  which  operates    with    con- 
scious and  predetermined  certainty.^    They  ignore  the 
outcome  of  speculative  philosophy. 

It  will  be  our  task  to  set  forth  in  a  short  summary 
what  speculative  philosophy  has  unconsciously  pro- 
duced of  a  positive  nature  by  a  tedious  process,  in  other 
words,  to  explain  the  general  nature  of  the  thought 
process.  We  shall  see  that  the  understanding  of  this 
process  will  furnish  us  wnth  the  means  of  solving 
scientifically  the  general  riddles  of  nature  and  of  life. 
And  thus  we  shall  learn  how  that  fundamental  and 
systematic  world  conception  is  developed  which  was 
the  long  coveted  goal  of  speculative  philosophy. 


II 


PURE  REASON  OR  THE  FACULTY  OF  THOUGHT  IN  GENERAL 

When  speaking  of  food  in  general,  we  may  men- 
tion fruits,  cereals,  vegetables,  meat  and  bread  and  clas- 
sify them  all,  in  spite  of  their  difference,  under  this  one 
head.  In  the  same  way,  we  use,  in  this  work,  the 
terms  reason,  consciousness,  .intellect,  knowledge, 
discernment,  understanding,  as  referring  to  the  same 
.  general  thing.  For  we  are  discussing  the  general  na- 
ture of  the  thought  process  rather  than  its  special 
forms. 

"No  intelligent  thinker  of  our  day,"  says  a  modern 
physiologist,  "pretends  to  look  for  the  seat  of  the  in- 
tellectual powers  in  the  blood,  as  did  the  ancient 
Greeks,  or  in  the  pineal  gland,  as  was  the  case  in  the 
middle  ages.  Instead  we  have  all  become  convinced 
that  the  central  nerve  system  is  the  organic  center  of 
the  intellectual  functions  of  the  brain."  Yes,  true 
enough,  thinking  is  a  function  of  the  brain  and  nerve 
centre,  just  as  waiting  is  a  function  of  the  hand.  But 
the  study  of  the  anatomy  of  the  hand  can  no  more 
solve  the  question:  What  is  writing?  than  the 
physiological  study  of  the  brain  can  bring  us  nearer 
to  the  solution  of  the  question:  What  is  thought? 
With  the  dissecting  knife,  we  may  kill,  but  we  cannot 
discover  the  mind.  The  understanding  that  thought 
is  a  product  of  the  brain  takes  us  closer  to  the  solu- 

61 


.*r 


62 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 


tion  of  our  problem,  in  as  much  as  it  draws  it  into  tlic 
bright  light  of  reality  and  out  of  the  domain  of  fan- 
tasy in  which  the  ghosts  dwell.  Mind  thereby  loses 
the  character  of  a  transcendental  incomprehensible 
being  and  appears  as  a  bodily  function. 

Thinking  is  a  function  of  the  brain  just  as  walking 
is  a  function  of  the  legs.  We  perceive  thought  and 
mind  just  as  clearly  with  our  senses  as  we  do  pain 
and  other  feelings.  Thought  is  felt  by  us  as  a  sub- 
jective process  taking  place  inside  of  us.  Accordmg 
to  its  contents  this  process  varies  every  moment  and 
with  each  person,  but  according  to  its  form  it  is  the 
same  everywhere.  In  other  words,  in  the  thought 
process,  as  in  all  processes,  we  make  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  special  or  concrete  and  the  general  or  ab- 
stract. The  general  purpose  of  thought  is  under- 
standing. We  shall  see  later  that  the  simplest  con- 
ception, or  any  idea  for  that  matter,  is  of  the  same 
general  nature  as  the  most  perfect  understanding. 

Thought  and  understanding  cannot  be  without 
subjective  contents  any  more  than  without  an  object 
which  suggests  individual  reflection.  Thought  is 
work,  and  like  every  other  work  it  requires  an  object 
to  which  it  is  applied.  The  statements:  I  do,  I  work, 
I  think,  must  be  completed  by  an  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion:    What  are  you  doing,  working,  thinking? 

Every  definite  idea,  all  actual  thought,  is  identical 
with  its  content,  but  not  with  its  object.  My  desk 
as  a  picture  in  my  mind  is  identical  with  my  idea  of 
it.  But  my  desk  outside  of  my  brain  is  a  separate 
object  and  distinct  from  my  idea.  The  idea  is  to  be 
distinguished   from   thinking   only   as   a   part   of   the 


PURE  REASON 


6.^ 


( 


thought  process,  while  the  object  of  my  thought  exists 
as  a  separate  entity. 

We  make  a  distinction  between  thinking  and  be- 
ing.  We  distinguish  between  the  object  of  sense  per- 
ception and  its  mental  image.  Nevertheless  the  in- 
tangible idea  is  also  material  and  real.  I  perceive  my 
idea  of  a  desk  just  as  plainly  as  the  desk  itself.  True, 
if  I  choose  to  call  only  tangible  things  material,  then 
ideas  are  not  material.  But  in  that  case  the  scent  of 
a  rose  and  the  heat  of  a  stove  are  not  material.  It 
would  be  better  to  call  thoughts  sense  perceptions. 
But  if  it  is  objected  that  this  would  be  an  incorrect 
use  of  the  word,  because  language  distinguishes  ma- 
terial and  mental  things,  then  we  dispense  with  the 
word  material  and  call  thought  real.  Mind  is  as  real 
as  the  tangible  table,  as  the  visible  light,  as  the  audi- 
ble sound.  While  the  idea  of  these  things  is  different 
from  the  things  themselves,  yet  it  has  that  in  common 
W'ith  them  that  it  is  as  real  as  they.  ^lind  is  not  any 
more  different  from  a  table,  a  light,  a  sound,  than 
these  things  differ  among  themselves.  We  do  not 
deny  that  there  is  a  difference.  We  merely  emphasize 
that  they  have  the  same  general  nature  in  common. 
I  hope  the  reader  will  not  misunderstand  me  hence- 
forth, when  I  call  the  faculty  of  thought  a  material 
quality,  a  phenomenon  of  sense  perception. 

Every  perception  of  the  senses  is  based  on  some 
object.  In  order  that  heat  may  be  real,  there  must  be 
an  object,  something  else  which  is  heated.  The  active 
cannot  exist  without  the  passive.  The  visible  cannot 
exist  without  the  faculty  of  sight,  nor  the  faculty  of 
sight  without  visible  things.  So  is  the  faculty  of 
thought  a  phenomenon,  but  it  can  never  exist  in  it- 


G4 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN   BILMN  'WORK 


PURE  REASON 


65 


self,  it  must  always  be  based  on  some  sense  percep- 
tion. Thought  appears,  like  all  other  phenomena,  in 
connection  with  an  object.  The  function  of  the  brain 
is  no  more  a  "pure"  process  than  the  function  of  the 
eye,  the  scent  of  a  flower,  the  heat  of  a  stove,  or  the 
touch  of  a  table.  The  fact  that  a  table  may  be  seen, 
heard,  or  felt,  is  due  as  much  to  its  own  nature  as  to 
that  of  another  object  with  which  it  enters  into  some 
relation. 

But  while  each  function  is  limited  by  its  own  sep- 
arate line  of  objects,  while  the  function  of  the  eye 
serves  only  for  the  perception  of  the  visible,  the  hand 
for  the  tangible,  while  walking  finds  an  object  in  the 
space  it  crosses,  thought,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
everything  for  its  object.  Everything  may  be  the  ob- 
ject of  understanding.  Thought  is  not  limited  to  any 
special  object.  Every  phenomenon  may  be  the  object 
and  the  content  of  thought.  More  than  this,  we  can 
only  perceive  anything  when  it  becomes  the  object  of 
our  brain  activity.  Everything  is  therefore  the  object 
and  content  of  thought.  The  faculty  of  thought  may 
be  exerted  quite  generally  on  all  objects. 

We  said  a  moment  ago  that  everything  may  be 
perceived,  but  we  now  modify  this  to  the  effect  that 
only  perceivable  things  may  be  perceived.  Only  the 
knowable  can  be  the  object  of  knowledge,  only  the 
thinkable  the  object  of  thought.  To  this  extent  the 
faculty  of  thought  is  limited,  for  it  cannot  replace 
reading,  hearing,  feeling,  and  all  other  innumerable 
activities  of  the  world  of  sensations.  We  do,  indeed, 
perceive  all  objects,  but  no  object  may  be  exhaustive- 
ly perceived,  known,  or  understood.  In  other  words, 
the  objects  are  not  wholly  dissolved  in  the  under- 


n 


'\ 


standing.  Seeing  requires  something  that  is  visible, 
something  which  is,  therefore,  more  than  seeing.  In 
the  same  way,  hearing  requires  something  that  can  be 
heard,  thinking  an  object  that  can  be  thought  of, 
something  which  is  more  than  our  thoughts,  some- 
thing still  outside  of  our  consciousness.  We  shall 
learn  later  on  how  we  arrive  at  the  knowledge  that 
we  see,  hear,  feel,  and  think  of  objects,  and  not  merely 
of  subjective  impressions. 

By  means  of  thought  we  become  aware  of  all 
things  in  a  twofold  manner,  viz.,  outside  in  reality 
and  inside  in  thought,  in  conception.  It  is  easy  to 
demonstrate  that  the  things  outside  are  different  from 
the  things  in  our  thoughts.  In  their  actual  form,  in 
their  real  dimensions,  they  cannot  enter  into  our 
heads.  Our  brain  does  not  assimilate  the  things  them- 
selves, but  only  their  images,  their  general  outlines. 
The  imagined  tree  is  only  a  general  object.  The  real 
tree  is  different  from  any  other.  And  though  I  may 
have  a  picture  of  some  special  tree  in  my  head,  yet  the 
real  tree  is  still  as  different  from  its  conception  as  the 
special  is  different  from  the  general.  The  infinite  va- 
riety of  things,  the  innumerable  w^ealth  of  their  prop- 
erties, has  no  room  in  our  heads. 

I  repeat,  then,  that  w_e  becj^ine^aware  of  the  outer 
worlcLin  a  twofold  waj^,  viz.,  in  a  concrete^  tangible, 
manifold  form,  and  in  an  abstract  form,  wh[ch  is 
mental  and  unitary.  To  our  senses  the  world  appears 
as  a  variety  of  forms.  Our  brains  combine  them  as 
a  unit.  And  what  is  true  of  the  world,  holds  good  of 
every  one  of  its  parts.  A  sense-perceived  unit  is  a 
nonentity.  Even  the  atom  of  a  drop  of  water  or  the 
atom  of  any  chemical  element,  is  divisible,  so  long  as 


66 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


PURE  REASON 


67 


it  exists  at  all,  and  its  parts  are  different  and  distinct. 
A  is  not  B.  But  the  concept,  the  faculty  of  thought, 
makes  of  every  tangible  or  sense-perceived  part  an  ab- 
stract whole  and  conceives  of  every  whole  or  quantity  as 
a  part  of  the  abstract  world  unit.  In  order  to  understand 
the  things  in  their  entirety,  we  must  take  them  prac- 
tically and  theoretically,  with  body  and  mind.  With  the 
body  we  can  grasp  only  the  bodily,  the  tangible,  with  the 
mind  only  the  mental,  the  thinkable.  Things  also  possess 
mental  quality.  Mind  is  material  and  things  are  mental. 
Mind  and  matter  are  real  only  in  their  inter-relations. 

Can  we  see  the  things  themselves?  No,  we  see 
only  the  effects  of  things  on  our  eyes.  We  do  not 
taste  the  vinegar,  but  the  relation  of  the  vinegar  to 
our  tongue.  The  result  is  the  sensation  of  acidity. 
The  vinegar  is  acid  only  in  relation  to  our  tongue. 
In  relation  to  iron  it  acts  as  a  solvent.  In  the  cold  it 
becomes  hard,  in  the  heat  liquid.  It  acts  differently 
on  different  objects  with  which  it  enters  into  relations 
of  time  and  space.  Vinegar  is  a  phenomenon,  just  as 
all  things  are.  But  it  never  appears  as  vinegar  by  it- 
self. It  always  appears  in  connection  with  other  phe- 
"o^^^^a-  Every  phenomenon  is  a  product  of  a  sub- 
ject and  an  object.. 

In  order  that  a  thought  may  appear,  the  brain  or 
the  faculty  of  thought  is  not  sufficient  in  itself.  It  re- 
quires, besides,  an  object  which  suggests  the  thought. 
From  this  relative  nature  of  our  topic  it  follows  that 
in  Its  treatment  we  cannot  confine  ourselves  "purely" 
to  It.  Since  reason,  or  the  faculty  of  thought,  never 
appears  by  itself,  but  always  in  connection  with  other 
thmgs,  we  are  continually  compelled  to  pass  from  the 


U 


faculty  of  thought  to  other  things,  which  are  its  ob- 
jects, and  to  treat  of  their  connections. 

Just  as  the  sight  does  not  see  the  tree,  but  only 
that  which  IS  visible  of  the  tree,  so  does  the  faculty  of 
thought  assimilate  only  the  perceivable  image  of  an 
object,  not  the  object  itself.    A  thought  is  a  child  be- 
gotten by  the  function   of  the  brain   in  communion 
with  some  object.    In  a  thought  is  crvstalized  on  one 
side   the   subjective   faculty  of  thought,   and  on   the 
other  the  perceivable   nature  of    an    object.     Every 
function   of  the   mind   presupposes   some    object    by 
which  It  IS  caused  and  the  spiritual  image  of  which 
It  is.    Or  vice  versa,  the  spiritual  content  of  the  mind 
is  derived  from  some  object  which  has  its  own  exist- 
ence and  which  is  either  seen  or  heard,  or  smelled,  or 
tasted,  or  felt,  in  short,  experienced. 

Referring  back  to  the  statement  that  seeing  is  lim- 
ited to  the  visible  qualities  of  some  object,  hearing  to 
Its  audible  qualities,  etc.,  while  the  facultv  of  thought 
has  everything  for  its  object,  we  now  understand  this 
to  mean  that  all  objects  have  certain  innumerable, 
but  concrete,  qualities  which  are  perceptible  by  our 
senses,  and  in  addition  thereto  the  general  spiritual 
quality  of  being  thought  of,  understood,  in  short,  of 
being  the  object  of  our  faculty  of  thought 

This  mode  of  classifying  all  objects  applies  also  to 
the  faculty  of  thought  itself.  The  spirit,  or  mind,  is 
a  bodily  function  connected  with  the  senses  which  ap- 
pear in  various  forms.  Mind  is  thought  generated  at 
different  times  in  different  brains  by  different  objects 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  senses.  We  may 
choose  this  mind  as  the  object  of  special  thought  the 
same  as  all  other  things.     Considered  as  an  object 


68 


THE   NATURE  OF   HUMAN   BRAIX   WORK 


mind  is  a  manysidcd  and  sense-perceived  fact  which 
in  connection  with  a  special  function  of  the  brain  gen- 
erates the  general  concept  of  '*Mind"  as  the  content 
of  this  special  thought  process.  The  object  of  thought 
is  distinguished  from  its  contents  in  the  same  way  in 
which  every  object  is  distinguished  from  its  mental 
image.  The  different  kinds  of  motion  perceived  by 
the  help  of  the  senses  are  the  object  of  a  certain 
thought  process  and  supply  to  it  the  idea  of  "motion." 
It  is  easier  to  understand  that  the  mental  image  of 
some  object  perceived  by  the  senses  has  a  father  and 
a  mother,  being  begotten  by  our  faculty  of  thought 
by  means  of  some  sense-perceived  object,  than  it  is  to 
grasp  the  existence  of  that  trinity  which  is  born  when 
our  present  thought  experiences  its  own  existence  and 
thus  creates  a  conception  of  its  own  self.  This  has  the 
appearance  of  moving  around  in  a  circle.  The  object, 
the  content  and  the  function  of  thought  apparently 
coincide.  Reason  deals  with  itself,  considers  itself  as 
an  object  and  is  its  own  content.  But  nevertheless  the 
distinction  between  an  object  and  its  concept,  though 
less  evident,  is  just  as  actual  as  in  other  cases. 
It  is  only  the  habit  of  regarding  matter  and  mind  as 
fundamentally  different  things  which  conceals  this 
truth.  The  necessity  to  make  a  distinction  compels 
us  everywhere  to  discriminate  between  the  object  of 
sense  perception  and  its  mental  concept.  We  are 
forced  to  do  the  same  in  the  case  of  the  faculty  of 
thought,  and  thus  we  find  it  necessary  to  give  the 
name  of  "Mind"  to  this  special  object  of  our  sense 
perceptions.  Such  an  ambiguity  of  terms  cannot  be 
entirely  avoided  in  any  science.  A  reader  who  does 
not  cling  to  words,  but  rather  seeks  to  grasp  the  mean- 


PURE  REASON 


69 


ing,  will  easily  realize  that  the  difference  between 
being  and  thinking  applies  also  to  the  faculty  of 
thought,  that  the  fact  of  understanding  is  different 
from  the  understanding  of  understanding.  And  since 
the  understanding  of  understanding  is  again  another 
fact,  it  will  be  permitted  to  call  all  spiritual  things 
facts  or  sense  perceptions. 

Reason,  or  the  faculty  of  thought,  is  therefore  not 
a    mystical    object    which    produces    the    individual 
thought.     On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  fact  that  certain  in^ 
dividual  thoughts  are  the  product  of  perception  gained 
in  contact  with  certain  objects  and  that  these  in  con- 
nection with  a  certain  brain  operation  produce  the  con- 
cept of  reason.    Reason  as  well  as  all  other  things  of 
which    we    become    aware    has    a    two-fold    existence: 
one  as  a  phenomenon  or  sense-perception,  the  other  as 
a  concept.     The  concept  of  any  thing  presupposes  a 
certain  sense-perception  of  that  thing,  and  so  does  the 
concept  of  reason.    Since  all  men  think  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  every  one  has  himself  perceived  reason  as  a  part 
of  reality,  as  a  phenomenon,  sense-perception  or  fact. 
Our  object,  reason,  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  it 
partakes  of  the  nature  of  the  senses,  has  the  faculty  of 
transforming  the  speculative  method,  which  tries  to 
dip  understanding  out  of  the  depths  of  the  spirit  with- 
out the  help  of  sense-perception,  into  the  inductive 
method,  and  vice  versa  of  transforming  the  inductive 
method,  which  desires  to  arrive  at  conclusions,  con- 
cepts, or  understanding  exclusively  by  means  of  sense- 
perception,  into  the  speculative  method,  by  virtue  of 
its   simultaneous   spiritual   nature.     Our  problem   is   to 
analyze  the  concept  of   thought,  or   of  the   faculty  of 


70 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 


thought,  or  of  reason,  of  knowing,  of  science,  by  means 
of  thought. 

To  produce  thoughts  and  to  analyze  them  is  the 
same  thing  inasmuch  as  both  actions  are  functions  of 
the  brain.    Both  have  the  same  nature.    But  they  are 
different  to  the  same  extent  that  instinct  differs  from 
consciousness.    Man  does  not  think  originally  because 
he  wants  to,  but  because  he  must.    Ideas  are  produced 
instinctively,  involuntarily.     In  order  to  become  fully 
aware  of  them,   to  place  them   within   the   grasp   of 
knowing  and  willing,  we  must  analyze  them.     From 
the  experience  of  walking,  for  instance,  we  derive  the 
idea  of  walking.     To  analyze  this  idea  means  to  solve 
the  question,  what  is  walking  generally  considered, 
what  is  the  general  nature  of  walking?     We  may  an- 
swer :    Walking  is  a  rythmical  motion  from  one  place 
to  another,  and  thus  we  raise  the  instinctive  idea  to 
the  position  of  a  conscious  analyzed  idea.    An  object 
is  not  consciously,  theoretically,  understood,  until  it 
has  been  analyzed.    In  examining  what  elements  con- 
stitute the  concept  of  walking,  we  find  that  the  gen- 
eral attribute  of  that  experience  which  we  agree  in 
calling  "walking"  is  a  rythmical   motion.     In  actual 
experience  steps  may  be  long  or  short,  may  be  taken 
by  two  feet  or  by  more,  in  brief  may  be  varied.     But 
as  a  concept  walking  is  simply  a  rythmical  motion, 
and   the  analysis   of  this   concept   furnishes   us   with 
the  conscious  understanding  of  this  fact.     The  con- 
cept of  light  existed  long  before  science  analyzed  it, 
before   it   was    understood   that   undulations   of   the' 
ether  form  the  elements  which  constitute  the  concept 
of  light.     Instinctive  and  analytical  ideas  differ  in  the 


PURE  REASON 


71 


same  way  in  which  the  thoughts  of  every  day  life  dif- 
fer from  the  thoughts  of  science. 

The  analysis  of  any  idea  and  the  theoretical  analy- 
sis of  any  object,  or  of  the  thing  which  suggested  the 
idea,  is  one  and  the  same.    Every  idea  corresponds  to 
some    real    object.      Ludwig    Feuerbach    has    demon- 
strated that  even  the  concepts  of  God  and  immortality 
are  reflections  of  real  objects  which  can  be  perceived 
by    the    senses.      For    the    purpose    of   anaylzing    such 
ideas  as  animal,  light,  friendship,  man,  etc.,  the  phe- 
nomena,  the   objects,   such   as    animals,    friendships, 
men,    and    lights,    are    analyzed.      The    object    which 
serves  for  the  analysis  of  the  concept  '"animal"  is  no 
more  any  single  animal,  than  the  object  of  the  concept 
''light"  is  any  single  light.     These  concepts  comprise 
classes,  things  in  general,  and  therefore  the  question, 
or  the  analysis,  of  what  constitutes  the  animal,  the 
light,  friendship,  must  not  deal  with  any  concrete,  but 
WMth  the  abstract  elements  of  the  whole  class. 

The  fact  that  the  analysis  of  a  concept  and  the  an- 
alysis of  its  object  appear  as  two  different  things  is 
due  to  our  faculty  of  being  able  to  separate  things 
into  two  parts,  viz.,  into  a  practical,  tangible,  per- 
ceptible, concrete  thing  and  into  a  theoretical  mental, 
thinkable,  general  thing.  The  practical  analysis  is 
the  premise  of  the  theoretical  analysis.  The  individ- 
ually perceptible  animals  serve  us  as  a  basis  for  the 
analysis  of  the  animal  concept,  the  individually  expe- 
rienced friendships  as  the  basis  for  the  analysis  of  the 
concept  of  friendship. 

Every  idea  corresponds  to  an  object  which  may  be 
practically  separated  into  its  component  parts.  To 
analyze  a  concept  is  equivalent,  therefore,  to  analyzing 


72 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


a  previously  experienced  object  by  theoretical  means. 
The  analysis  of  a  concept  consists  in  the  understand- 
ing of  the  common  or  general  faculties  of  the  concrete 
parts  of  the  analyzed  object.  That  which  is  common 
to  the  various  modes  of  walking,  the  rythmical  motion, 
constitutes  the  concept  of  walking,  that  which  is 
common  to  the  various  manifestations  of  light  consti- 
tutes the  concept  of  light.  A  chemical  factory  anal- 
yzes objects  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  chemicals, 
while  science  analyzes  them  for  the  purpose  of  ob- 
taining their  concepts. 

The  special  object  of  our  analysis,  the  faculty  of 
thought,  is  likewise  distinguished  from  its  concept. 
But  in  order  to  be  able  to  analyze  this  concept,  we 
must  analyze  the  object.  It  cannot  be  analyzed 
.  chemically,  for  not  everything  is  a  matter  of  chem- 
istry, but  it  may  be  analyzed  theoretically  or  scien- 
tifically. As  we  have  already  stated,  the  science  of 
understanding  deals  with  all  objects.  But  all  objects 
which  this  science  may  wish  to  analyze  theoretically, 
must  first  be  handled  practically.  According  to  their 
special  natures,  they  must  either  be  handled  in  va- 
rious ways,  or  carefully  inspected,  or  scrutinized  by 
intent  listening,  in  short  they  must  be  thoroughly  ex- 
perienced in  some  way. 

It  is  a  fact  of  experience  that  men  think.  The 
object  or  suggestion  is  furnished  by  facts,  and  we 
then  derive  the  concept  instinctively.  Thus,  to  anal- 
yze the  faculty  of  thought  means  to  find  that  which 
is  common  or  general  to  the  various  personal  and 
temporary  processes  of  thought.  In  order  to  follow 
this  study  by  the  methods  of  natural  science,  we  re- 
quire neither  physical   instruments  nor  chemical   re- 


PURE   REASON 


73 


\- 


agents.  The  sense  perception  which  is  indispensable 
for  every  scientific  understanding,  is  so  to  say  present 
in  this  case  a  priori,  without  further  experience.  Every 
one  possesses  the  object  of  our  study,  the  fact  of  thought 
faculty  and  its  experience,  in  the  memories  of  himself 
or  herself. 

We  have  seen  that  thought  like  any  other  activity 
as  well  as  its  scientific  analysis  is  everywhere  devel- 
oping the  general  or  abstract  out  of  particular  and 
concrete  sense  perceptions.  We  now  express  this  in 
the  following  words :  The  common  feature  of  all  sep- 
arate thought-processes  consists  in  their  seeking  the 
general  character  or  unity  which  is  common  to  all 
objects  experienced  in  their  manifold  variety  by  sense 
perceptions.  The  general  element  which  is  common 
to  the  dififerent  animals,  or  to  the  dififerent  manifes- 
tations of  light,  is  that  which  constitutes  the  general 
animal  or  light  concept.  The  general  is  the  nature 
of  all  concepts,  of  all  understanding,  all  science,  all 
thought  processes.  Thus  we  arrive  at  the  under- 
standing that  the  analysis  of  the  faculty  of  thought 
reveals  its  nature  of  finding  that  which  is  general  and 
common  to  concrete  and  distinct  things.  The  eye 
studies  the  visible,  the  ear  the  audible,  and  our  brain 
that  which  is  generally  conceivable. 

We  have  seen  that  thought  like  any  other  activity 
requires  an  object;  that  it  is  unlimited  in  the  choice 
of  its  objects,  because  all  things  may  become  the  ob- 
jects of  thought;  that  these  objects  are  perceived  in 
manifold  forms  by  various  senses;  and  that  they  are 
transformed  into  simple  ideas  by  extricating  that 
which  they  possess  in  common,  which  is  similar, 
which   is  general   in  them.     If  we  apply   this   expe- 


74 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


PURE  REASON 


75 


rienced  understanding  of  the  general  method  of 
thought  processes  to  our  special  object,  the  faculty  of 
thought,  we  realize  that  we  have  thus  solved  our  prob- 
lem, because  all  we  were  looking  for  was  the  general 
method  of  the  thought  process. 

//  the  development  of  the  general  out  of  the  concrete 
constitutes  the  general  method  by  which  reason  arrives  at 
understanding,  then  ive  have  fully  grasped  reason  as  the 
faculty  of  deriving  the  general  out  of  the  concrete. 
^    Thinking  is  a  physical  process  and  it  cannot  exist 
or  produce  anything  without  materials  any  more  than 
any  other  process   of  labor.     My    thought    requires 
some  material  which  can  be  thought  of.    This  mate- 
rial is  furnished  by  the  phenomena  of  nature  and  life.  - 
These  are  the  concrete  things.     In  claiming  that  the 
universe,  or  all  things,  may  be  the  object  of  thought 
we  snnply  mean   that  the  materials  of  the   thought 
process,  the  objects  of  the  mind,  are  infinite  in  quan- 
tity and  quality.     The  materials  which   the  universe 
furnishes  for  our  thought  are  as  infinite  as  space    as 
eternal  as  time,  and  as  absolutely  manifold  as  the'na- 
ture  of  these  two  forms  of  being.     The   faculty    of 
thought  IS  a  universal  faculty  in  so  far  as  it  enters 
into  relations  with  all  things,  all  substances,  all  phe- 
nomena, and  thus  generates  thought.     But  it  is  not 
absolute,  since  it  requires  for  its  existence  and  action 
the   previous   presence   of    matter.   ^^latter    is    the 
boundary,  beyond  which  the  mind  cannot  pass.  tMat- 
ter  furnishes  the  background  for  the  illumination  of 
the  mmd,  but  is  not  consumed  in  this  illumination. 
<  Mind  IS  a  product  of  matter,  but  matter  is  more  than 
a  product  of  mind,>a)eing  perceived  also  through    the 
five  senses  and  thus  brought  to  our  notice.     We  call 


1 


f 


real,  objective  products,  or  ''things  themselves"  only 
such  products  as  are  revealed  to  us  simultaneously  by 
the  senses  and  the  mind. 

Reason  is  a  real  thing  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  per- 
ceived  by  the  senses.     The  perceptible  actions  of  rea- 
son are  revealed  in  the  brain  of  man  as  well  as  in  the 
world  outside  of  it.     For  are  not  the  effects  tangible 
by   which   reason   transforms   nature   and   life?     We 
see  the  successes  of  science  with  our  eyes  and  grasp 
them  with  our  hands.    It  is  true  that  science  or  reason 
cannot   produce   such   material   efifects   out  of   them- 
selves.    The  world  of  sense  perceptions,  the  objects 
outside    of    the    human    brain,    must    be    given.      But 
what  thing   is   there   that  has  any   effects   "in   itself?" 
In  order  that  light  may  shine,  that  the  sun  may  warm, 
and  revolve  in  its  course,  there  must  be  space  and 
other  things  which  may  be  lighted  and  warmed  and 
passed.    In  order  that  my  table  may  have  color,  there 
must  be  light  and  eyes.     And  everything  else  which 
my  table  is  besides,  it  can  be  only  in   contact  with 
other  things.     Its  being  is  just  as  manifold  as  those 
various   contacts   or   relations.     In   short,   the   world 
consists  only  in  its  interrelations.     Any  thing  that  is 
torn  out  of  its  relations  with  the  world  ceases  to  ex- 
ist.   A  thing  is  anything  *'in  itself"  only  because  it  is 
something  for  other  things,  by  acting  or  appearing  in 
connection  with  something  else. 

If  we  wish  to  regard  the  world  in  the  light  of  the 
"thing  itself,"  we  shall  easily  see  that  the  world  "it- 
self" and  the  world  as  it  appears,  the  world  of  phe- 
nomena, differ  only  in  the  same  way  in  which  the 
whole  diflfcrs  from  its  component  parts.  The  world 
"itself '  is  nothing  else  but  the  sum  total  of  its  phe- 


76 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 


nomena.     The    same   holds   good   of   that   part   of   the 
world  phenomena  which  we  call  reason,  spirit,  facul- 
ty of  thought.     Although   we   distinguish   between   the 
faculty  of  thought  and  its  phenomena  or  manifesta- 
tions, yet  the  faculty  of  thought  ''itself,"  or  "pure'* 
reason,  exists  in  reality  only  in  the  sum  total  of  its 
manifestations.     Seeing  is   the   physical   existence   of 
the  faculty  of  sight.     We  possess  the  whole  only  by 
means  of  its  parts,  and  we  can  possess  reason,  like  all 
other  things,  only  by  the  help  of  its  effects,  by  its  va- 
rious thoughts.     But  we  repeat  that  reason  does  not 
precede  thought  in  the  order  of  time.     On  the  con- 
trary thoughts  generated  by  perceptible  objects  serve 
as  a  basis  for  the  development  of  the  concept  of  the 
faculty  of  thought.    Just  as  the  understanding  of  the 
world  movements  has  taught  us  that  the  sun  is  not 
revolving  around  the  earth,  so  the  understanding  of 
the  thought  process  tells  us  that  it  is  not  the  faculty 
of   thought   which    creates   thought,    but    vice    versa, 
that  the  concept  of  this  faculty  is  created  out  of  a 
series  of  concrete  thoughts.    Hence  the  faculty  of  thought 
practically    exists   only    as   the     sum     total     of     our 
thoughts,   just   as   the   faculty   of   sight   exists    only 
through  the  sum  of  the  things  that  we  see. 

These  thoughts,  this  practical  reason,  serve  as  the 
material  out  of  which  our  brain  manufactures  the 
concept  of  "pure"  reason.  Reason  is  necessarily  im- 
pure in  practice,  w^hich  means  that  it  must  connect 
Itself  with  some  object.  Pure  reason,  or  abstract 
reason  without  any  special  content,  cannot  be  any- 
thmg  else  but  the  general  characteristic  of  all  con- 
crete reasoning  processes.  We  possess  this  general 
nature  of  reason  in  two  ways :     In  an  impure  state, 


PURE  REASON 


77 


that  is  as  practical  and  concrete  phenomenon,  con- 
sisting of  the  sum  of  our  real  perceptions,  and  in  a 
pure  state,  that  is  theoretically  or  abstractly,  in  the 
concept.  The  phenomenon  of  reason  is  distinguished 
from  reason  "itself"  just  as  the  real  animals  are  dis- 
tinguished from  the  concept  of  the  animal. 

Every  actual  reasoning  process  is  based  on  some 
real  object  which  has  many  qualities  like  all  things 
in  nature.  The  faculty  of  thought  extracts  from  this 
many-sided  object  those  properties  which  are  general 
or  common  with  it.  A  mouse  and  an  elephant,  as  the 
objects  of  our  reasoning  activity,  lose  their  differ- 
ences in  the  general  animal  concept.  Such  a  concept 
combines  many  things  under  one  uniform  point  of 
view,  it  develops  one  general  idea  out  of  many  con- 
crete things.  Since  understanding  is  the  general  or 
common  quality  of  all  reasoning  processes,  it  follows 
that  reason  in  general,  or  the  general  nature  of  the 
reasoning  process,  consists  in  abstracting  the  gen- 
eral ideal  character  from  any  concrete  thing  per- 
ceptible by  the  help  of  the  senses. 

Reason  being  unable  to  exist  without  some  objects 
outside  of  itself,  it  is  understood  that  we  can  perceive 
"pure"  reason,  or  reason  "itself,"  only  by  its  practi- 
cal manifestations.  We  cannot  find  reason  without 
objects  outside  of  it  w^th  which  it  comes  in  contact 
and  produces  thought,  any  more  than  we  can  find 
any  eyes  without  light.  And  the  manifestations  of 
reason  are  as  varied  as  the  objects  which  supply  its 
material.  It  is  plain,  then,  that  reason  has  no  sep- 
arate existence  "in  itself,"  but  that  on  the  contrary 
the  concept  of  reason  is  formed  out  of  the  material 
supplied  by  the  senses. 


78 


THE   NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


PURE  REASON 


79 


Mental  processes  appear  only  in  connection  with 
perceptible  phenomena.     These    processes    are    them- 
selves phenomena  of  sense  perception  which,  in  con- 
nection with  a  brain  process,  produce  the  concept  of 
the    faculty   of   thought    ''itself."     If    we    analyze    this 
concept,  we  find  that  ''pure"  reason  consists  in  the 
activity  of  producing  general   ideas  out  of  concrete 
materials,      which      include      so-called      immaterial 
thoughts.     In  other  words,  reason  may  be  character- 
ized as  an  activity  which  seeks  for  unity  in  every  mul- 
tiplicity and  equalizes  all  contrasts  whether  it  deals 
with  the  many  different  sides  and  parts  of  one  or  of 
more  objects.    All  these  different  statements  describe 
the  same  thing  in  different  words,  so  that  the  reader 
may  not  cling  to  the  empty  word,  but  grasp  the  living 
concept,  the  manifold  object,  in  its  general  nature 

Reason,  we  said,  exists  in  a  "pure"  state  as  the  de- 
velopment of  the  general  out  of  the  special,  of  the 
abstract  out  of  concrete  sense  perceptions.     This   is 
the  whole  content  of  pure  reason,  of  scientific  under- 
standing, of  consciousness.    And  by  the  terms  "pure" 
and    whole"  we  simply  indicate  that  we  mean  the  gen- 
eral content  of  the  various  thought    processes,    the 
genera    form  of  reason.    Apart  from  this  general  ab- 
stract form,  reason,  like  all  other  things,  has  also  its 
concrete,  special,  sense  form   which  we   perceive  di- 
rectly through  our  experience.    Hence  our  entire  pro- 
cess of  consciousness  consists   in   the   experience  of 
the  senses,  that  is  in  the  physical  process,  and  its  un- 

of  anv  r*  .  ^^nclerstanding  is  the  general  reflection 
oi  any  object. 

Consciousness,  as  the  Latin  root  of  the  word  indicates 
.s  the  knowledge  of  being  in  existence.    It  is  a  form,  or  a 


f 


quality,  of  existence  which  diil'ers  from  other  forms  of 
being  in  that  it  is  aware  of  its  existence.    Quality  cannot 
be  explained,  but  must  be  experienced.    We  know  by 
experience   that   consciousness   includes   along   with   the 
knowledge  of  being  in  existence  the  difference  and  con- 
tradiction between  subject  and  object,  thinking  and  being, 
between  form  and  content,  between  phenomenon  and  es- 
sential thing,  between  attribute  and  substance,  between  the 
general  and  the  concrete.     This  innate  contradiction  ex- 
plains the  various  terms  applied  to  consciousness,  such  as 
the  organ   of  abstraction,   the   faculty  of  generaliza- 
tion or  unification,  or  in  contradistinction  thereto  the 
faculty  of  differentiation.     For  consciousness  general- 
izes   differences    and    differentiates    generalities.     Con- 
tradiction is  innate  in  consciousness,  and  its  nature  is 
so  contradictory  that  it  is  at  the  same  time  a  differ- 
tiating,   a   generalizing,    and   an   understanding   nature. 
Consciousness  generalizes  contradiction.  It  recognizes 
that  all  nature,  all  being,  lives  in  contradictions,  that 
everything  is   what  it  is  only  in  co-operation  with   its 
opposite.    Just  as  visible  things  are  not  visible  with- 
out the  faculty  of  sight,  and  vice  versa  the  faculty  of 
sight  cannot  see  anything  but  what  is  visible,  so  con- 
tradiction  must  be  recognized  as   something  general 
which  pervades  all  thought  and  being.     The  science 
of     understanding,     by     generalizing     contradiction, 
solves  all  concrete  contradictions. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


81 


III 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


In  SO  far  as  the  faculty  of  understanding  is  a 
physical  object,  the  knowledge  of  its  nature  is  a  mat- 
ter of  physical  science.  But  in  so  far  as  we  under- 
stand all  things  by  the  help  of  this  faculty,  the  science 
of  understanding  becomes  metaphysics.  Inasmuch 
as  the  scientific  analysis  of  reason  reverses  the  cur- 
rent conception  of  its  nature,  this  specific  understand- 
mg  necessarily  reverses  our  entire  world  philosophy. 
With  the  understanding  of  the  nature  of  reason,  we 
arrive  at  the  long  sought  understanding  of  the  -'na- 
ture  of  things." 

Vve  wish  to  know,  understand,  conceive,  recognize 
all  things  in  their  very  nature,  not  in  their  outward 
appearance.  Science  seeks  to  understand  the  nature 
of  things,  or  their  true  essence,  by  means  of  their 
manitestations.  Every  thing  has  its  own  special  na- 
ture and  this  nature  is  not  seen,  or  felt,  or  heard,  but 
solely  perceived  by  the  faculty  of  thought.  This  fac- 
ulty explores  the  nature  of  all  things  just  as  the  eye 
explores  all  that  is  visible  in  things.  Just  as  the  na- 
ture of  sight  is  understood  bv  the  theorv  of  vision 
so  the  nature  of  things  in  general  is  understood  by  the 
theory  of  understanding. 

It  is  true  that  it  sounds  contradictory  to  say  that 
the  nature  of  a  thing  docs  not  appear  to  the  eye,  but 

80 


to  the  faculty  of  thought,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
imply  that  the  opposite  of  appearance,  nature,  should 
appear.  But  we  here  refer  to  the  nature  of  a  thing  as 
a  phenomenon  in  the  same  way  in  which  we  referred 
to  the  mind  as  a  perception  of  the  senses,  and  we 
shall  demonstrate  further  on  that  every  being  is  a 
phenomenon,  and  every  phenomenon  is  more  or  less 
of  an  essential  thing. 

We  have  seen  that  the  faculty  of  thought  requires 
for  its  vital  activity  an  object,  or  raw  material.     The 
eflfect   of   reasoning   is   seen    in    science,     no     matter 
whether  we  understand  the  term  science  in  its  nar- 
row classical  sense  or  in  its  broadest  meaning  of  any 
kind  of  knowledge.     The  phenomena  of  sense  percep- 
tion    constitute     the     general     object    or    material     of 
science.     Sense  perceptions  arise  from   infinite  circu- 
lation of  matter.     The  iiniverse  and  all   things  in  it 
consist     of     transformations     of     matter     which    take 
place  simultaneously  and  consecutively  in  space  and 
time.    The  universe  is  in  every  place  and  at  any  time 
itself,  new,  and  present  for  the  first  time.     It  arises 
and  passes  away,  passes  and  arises  under  our  very 
hands.     Nothing  remains  the  same,  only  the  infinite 
change    is    constant,    and    even    the    change    varies. 
Every  particle  of  time  and  space  brings  new  changes. 
It  is  true  that  the  materialist  believes  in  the  perma- 
nency,     eternity,      indestructibility    of     matter.      He 
teaches  us  that  not  the  smallest  particle  of  matter  has 
ever    been     lost    in    the    world,    that    matter   simply 
changes  its  forms  eternally,  but  that  its  nature  lasts 
indestructibly  through  all  eternity.    And  yet,  in  spite 
of  all  distinctions  between  matter  itself  and  its  perish- 
able form,  the  materialist  is  on  the  other  hand  more 


\ 


82 


THE  NATURE  OF  IIUMAX  BRAIN   WORK 


inclined  than  any  one  else  to  dwell  on  the  identity  of 
matter  and  its  forms.     Inasmuch   as   the   materialist 
speaks  ironically  of  formless  matter    and    matterless 
forms,  in  the  same  breath  with  perishable  forms  of 
imperishable  matter,  it  is  plain  that  materialism  is  not 
informed  any  more  than  idealism  as  to  the  relation  of 
content  to  form,  of  a  phenomenon  to  the  essential  na- 
ture of  its  subject.     Where  do  we  find  such  eternal, 
imperishable,  formless  matter?    In  the  world  of  sense 
perceptions  we  never  meet  anything  but  forms  of  per- 
ishable matter.     It  is  true  that  there  is  matter  every- 
where.    Wherever  anything  passes  away,  something 
new  instantly  arises.     But  nowhere  has  any  homoge- 
enous,   unchangeable   matter   enduring    without    any 
form,  ever  been  discovered.     Even  a  chemically  indi- 
visible element  is  only  a   relative  unit  in  its   actual 
existence,  and  in  extension  of  time  as  well  as  in  ex- 
tension through  space  it    varies    simultaneously    and 
consecutively    as    much    as    any    organic    individual 
which  also  changes  only  its  concrete  forms,  but  re- 
mains the  same  in  its  general  nature  from  beginning 
to  end.     My  body  changes  continually  its  fleshy  tis- 
sue, bones,  and  every  other  particle  belonging  to  it, 
and  yet  it  always  remains  the  same.     What  consti- 
tutes, then,  this  body  which  is  distinguished  from  its 
transient  form?     It  is  the  sum  total,  in  a  generalized 
way,   of   all    its    varied   concrete    forms.      Eternal   and 
imperishable  matter  exists  in  reality  only  as  the  sum 
total  of  its  perishable  forms.    The  statement  that  mat- 
ter is  imperishable  cannot  mean    anything    but    that 
there  will  always  and  everywhere  be   matter.     It  is 
just  as  true  to  say  that  matter  is  imperishable  and 
merely  changes  its  forms,  as  it  is  to  say  that  matter 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


83 


exists  only  in  its  changing  forms,  that  it  is  matter 
which  changes  and  that  only  the  change  is  eternal. 
The  terms  ''changeable  matter"  and  ''material  change" 
are  after  all  only  different  expressions  for  the  same 
thing. 

In  the  practical  world  of  sense  perceptions,  there 
is  nothing  permanent,  nothing  homogeneous,  nothing 
beyond  nature,  nothing  like  a  "thing  itself."  Every- 
thing is  changing,  passing,  phantomlike,  so  to  say. 
One  phantom  is  chased  by  another.  "Nevertheless," 
says  Kant,  "things  are  also  something  in  themselves," 
for  otherwise  we  should  have  the  absurd  contradic- 
tion that  there  could  be  phenomena  without  things 
that  produce  them."  But  no!  A  phenomena  is  no 
more  and  no  less  different  from  the  thing  which  pro- 
duces it  than  the  the  stretch  of  a  twenty-mile  road  is 
different  from  the  road  itself.  Or  we  may  distinguish 
between  a  knife  and  its  blade  and  handle,  but  we  know  fU<^ 
that  that  there  would  be  no  knife  if  there  were  no  blade 
and  no  handle.  The  essential  nature  of  the  universe  is 
change.     Phenomena  appear,  that  is  all. 

The  contradiction  between  the  'thing  itself,"  or  its 
essence,  and  its  outward  appearance  is  fully  solved 
by  a  complete  critique  of  reason  which  arrives  at  the 
understanding  that  the  human  faculty  of  thought  may 
generalize  any  number  of  varied  sense  perceptions 
under  one  uniform  point  of  view,  by  singling  out  the 
general  and  equivalent  forms  and  thus  regarding  every- 
thing it  may  meet  as  a  concrete  part  of  one  and  the  same 
whole. 

In  other  words,  the  relative  and  transient  forms 
perceived  by  our  senses  serve  as  raw  material  for  our 
brain  activity,  which  abstracts  the  general  likeness  out 


84 


THE   NATURE   OF   HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


of   the    concrete    forms    and    systematizes    or    classifies 
them  for  our  consciousness.     The  infinite  variety  of 
sense    perceptions    passes  in  review  before  our  subjec- 
tive mind,  and  it  constructs  out  of  the  multiplicity  the 
unity,  out  of  the  parts  the  whole,  out  of  the  phenomena 
the  essential  nature,  out  of  the  perishable  the  imper- 
ishable, out  of  the  attributes  the  subject.     The  essence, 
the  nature  of  things,  the  "thing  itself"  is  an  ideal,  a 
spiritual    conception.     Consciousness    knows    how    to 
make   sums  out  of  diflferent  units.     It  can  take  any 
number  of  units  for  its  sums.     The  entire  multiplicity 
of  the  universe  is  theoretically  conceived  as  one  unit. 
On   the  other  hand,  every  abstract  sum   consists   in 
reality   of  an   infinite   number   of   sense   perceptions. 
Where  do  we  find  any  indivisible  unit  outside  of  our 
abstract  conceptions?    Two  halves,  four  fourths,  eight 
eighths,  or  an  infinite  number  of  separate  parts   form 
the  raw  material  out  of  which  the  mind  fashions  the 
mathematical  unit.     This  book,  its  leaves,  its  letters, 
or  their  parts,  are   they  units?     Where  do   I   begin, 
where  do  I   stop?     In   the  same   way,   I   may  call   a 
library  with  many  volumes,  a  house,  a  farm,  and  final- 
ly the  whole  universe,  a  unit.     Is  not  everything  a 
part,  is  not  every  part  a  thing?     Is  the  color  of  a  leaf 
less  of  a  thing  than  that  leaf  itself?     Perhaps  some 
would  call  the  color  simply  an  attribute  and  the  leaf 
its  substance,  because  there  might  be  a  leaf  without 
color,  but  no  color  without  a  leaf.     But  as  surely  as 
we  exhaust  a  heap  of  sand  by  scattering  it,  just  as 
surely  do  we  remove  all  the  substance  of  a  leaf  when 
we  take  away  its  attributes  one  after  the  other.  J  Color 
is  only  the  sum  of  reactions  of  leaf,  light,  and  eye,  and 
so  is  all  the  rest  of  the  matter  of  a  leaf  an  ae^crreeate  of 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


85 


interactions.  In  the  same  way  in  which  our  reason 
deprives  a  leaf  of  its  color  attributes  and  sets  it  apart 
as  a  "thing  itself,"  may  we  continue  to  deprive  that 
leaf  of  all  its  other  attributes,  and  in  so  doing  we  final- 
ly take  away  everything  that  makes  the  leaf.  Color 
is  in  its  nature  no  less  a  substance  than  the  leaf  itself, 
and  the  leaf  is  no  less  an  attribute  than  its  color. 
As  the  color  is  an  attribute  of  a  leaf,  so  a  leaf  is  an  attri- 
bute of  a  tree,  a  tree  an  attribute  of  the  earth,  the  earth 
an  attribute  of  the  universe.  The  universe  is  the  sub- 
stsance,  substance  in  general,  and  all  other  substances  are 
but  its  attributes.  And  this  world-substance  reveals  the 
fact  that  the  nature  of  things,  the  "thing  itself"  as  dis- 
tinguished from  its  manifestations,  is  only  a  concept  of  the 
mind. 

In  its  universal  search  from  the  attribute  to  the 
substance,  from  the  relative  to  the  absolute,  from 
the  appearance  of  things  to  the  true  things,  the  mind 
finally  arrives  at  the  understanding  that  the  substance 
is  nothing  but  a  sum  of  attributes  collected  by  brain 
activity,  and  that  the  mind  itself,  or  reason,  is  a  sub-  \ 
stantial  being  which  creates  abstract  mental  units  out  I 
of  a  multitude  of  sense  perceptions  and  conceives  of*^ 
the  universe  as  an  absolute  whole,  as  an  independent 
"thing  itself,"  by  adding  all  its  transient  manifesta- 
tions. In  turning  away  full  ot  dissatisfaction  from 
attributes,  searching  restlessly  after  the  substance, 
throwing  aside  phenomena,  and  forever  groping  for 
truth,  for  the  nature  of  things,  for  the  "thing  itself," 
and  in  finally  realizing  that  this  substantial  truth  is 
merely  the  sum  of  all  socalled  untruths,  the  totality  of 
all  phenomena,  the  mind  proves  itself  to  be  the  creator 
of  the  abstract  concept  of  substance.     But  it  did  not 


\ 


86  THE   NATURE   OF   HUMAN   BRAIN    WORK 

create  this  concept  out  of  -^^-^^'^^  ^^;:,teroToi 

%t     id'lt    conception   that   there    is    an   ahstrac 
nature   behind   phenomena   which   -^^^^^^^ 
them  is  refuted  by  the  understandmg  that  this  hidden 
nature  does  not  dwell   in  the   world  outside  of  th 
human  mind,  but  in  the  brain  of  man      Bu    sine      he 
brain  differentiates  between  phenomena  and  the  r  na 
'ur      b  tween   the   concrete   and   the   general,   only   by 
lans  of  sense  perception,  it  cannot  be  denied  th 
the  distinction  between  phenomena  and  th^i    nature 
s  well  founded;    only  the  essential  nature  of  thmgs  is 
not  found  back  of  phenomena,  but  by  means  of  pheno- 
?^ena     This  nature  is  materially  existent  and  our  fac- 
ulty of  thought  is  a  real  and  natural  one 

It  is  true  of  spiritual  things  as  well  as  of  physical 
ones,   in   fact  it   is  true   of   all   things,   -etaph>'.cany 
speaking,  that  they  are  what  they  are,  not     in  tl    m 
selves,"    not   in   their    abstract   nature,   but    in    contac 
with  other  things,  in  reality.  In  this  sense  one  migh 
sav  that  things  are  not  what  they  seem,  but  manifest 
th;mselves    be^cause    they    are    existent,  and  they  mani- 
fest themselves  in  as  many  difierent  ways  as  there  are 
other   things   with   which,   they   enter   into   relations   of 
time  and  space.    But  the  statement  that  things  are  not 
what  they  seem  requires,  in  order  to  be  rightly  under- 
stood, the  modification  that  whatever  manifests  itself, 
exists  in  nature,  and  its  existence  is  limited  by  its 
manifestations.     "We  cannot  perceive  heat  itself,     says 
i  book  on   phvsics   written   by   Professor   Koppe,     we 
merelv   conclude   from    its   manifestations   that    it   is 
present    in    nature."      Thus    reasons    a    naturalist    who 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


87 


seeks  to  understand  a  thing  by  practical  and  diligent 
study  of  its  manifestations,  but  who  seeks  refuge  in 
the  speculative  belief  in  a  hidden  "thing  itself"  when- 
ever a  lack  of  understanding  of  the  fundamentals  of 
logic  embarrasses  him.  We,  on  the  contrary,  con- 
clude that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  ''heat  itself,"  since 
it  cannot  be  found,  in  nature,  and  we  conceive  of  heat 
as  effects  of  matter  which  the  human  brain  translated 
into  the  conception  of  '1ieat  itself."  Because  science 
was,  perhaps,  as  yet  unable  to  analyse  this  conception, 
the  profesor  says  we  cannot  perceive  the  natural  ob- 
ject which  gives  rise  to  this  conception.  ''Heat  itself" 
is  simply  composed  of  the  sum  total  of  its  manifold 
effects,  and  there  is  nothing  else  to  it.  The  faculty  of 
thought  generalizes  this  variety  of  effects  under  the 
concept  of  heat  in  general.  The  analysis  of  this  con- 
ception, the  discovery  of  the  general  character  of  the 
various  nianifestations  of  heat,  is  the  function  of  in- 
ductive science.  But  the  conception  of  heat  separated 
from  its  effects  is  a  speculative  idea,  similar  to  Lich- 
tenberg's  knife  without  handle  and  blade. 

The  faculty  of  thought  in  touch  with  sense  precep- 
tions  produces  the  nature  of  things.  But  it  produces 
them  no  more  independently  of  things  outside  than  do 
the  eye,  the  ear,  or  any  other  sense  of  man.  It  is  not 
the  "things  themselves"  which  we  see  or  feel,  but  their 
effects  on  our  eyes,  hands,  etc.  The  faculty  of  reason 
to  generalize  different  perceptions  of  the  eye  permits 
us  to  distinguish  between  concrete  sights  and  sight  in 
general.  The  faculty  of  thought  conceives  of  any  con- 
crete sight  as  an  object  of  sight  in  general.  It  further- 
more distinguishes  between  subjective  and  objective 
sight  perceptions,  the  latter  b'^inj-  sisrhts  which  are  visi- 


t»i'(»»i^g*iteWfe^^j;Brg*mw>g.l*»imWrii« 


88 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 


THE  In'ATURK  of  THINGS 


89 


ble  not  alone  to  the  individual  eye,  but  to  eyesight  in 
general.     Even   the   visions   of   a    spiritualist,   or   such 
subjective  impressions  as  forked  lightning,  circles  of 
fire,  caused  by  excited  blood  of  closed  eyes,  serve  as 
objects  for  the  critical  consciousness.     A  glittering  ob- 
ject revealed  by  bright  sunlight  miles  away  is  no  more 
and  no  less  tangible  in  substance,  no  more  and  no  less 
true,  than  any  optical  illusion.     A  man  whose  ear  is 
tingling  hears  something,  though  it  is  not  the  tinkling 
of   bells.     Every   sense   perception   is   an  object,  and 
every  object  is  a  sense  perception.     The  object  of  any 
sub/ective  mind  is  a  passing  manifestation,  and  every 
objective  perception  is  but  a  perishable  subject.     The 
object  of  observation  may  exist  in  a  more  tangible,  less 
approachable,  more  stable,  or  more  general  form,  but 
it  is  not  a  "thing  itself."       It  may  be  perceived  not 
alone  by  my  eyes,  but  also  by  those  of  others,  not  by 
the  eye's,  but  also  by  the  feeling,  the  hearing,  the  taste, 
etc.     And  it  may  be  noticed  not  alone  by  men,  but  also 
by  other  objects.     But  nevertheless  it  appears  only  as 
a  manifestation,  it  is  different  in  different  places,^  it  is 
not  today  what  it  is  tomorrow.     Every  existence  is  re- 
lative, in  touch  with  other  things,  and  entering  into 
different  relations  of  time  and  space  with  them. 

Every  sense  perception  is  an  actual  and  natural  ob- 
ject. Truth  exists  in  the  form  of  natural  phenomena, 
and  whatever  is,  is  true.  Substance  and  attribute  are 
only  terms  for  certain  relations.  They  are  not  con 
tradictions,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  all  contradictions 
disappear  before  our  faculty  of  generalization  and  dif- 
ferentiation. For  this  faculty  reconciles  all  contradic- 
tions by  finding  a  general  quality  in  all  differences. 
Existence,  or  universal  truth,  is  the  general  object,  the 


M 


raw  material,  of  the  faculty  of  thought.  This  material 
is  of  the  utmost  variety  and  supplied  by  the  senses. 
The  senses  reveal  to  us  the  substance  of  the  universe 
in  the  forms  of  concrete  qualities,  in  other  words,  the 
nature  of  perceptible  matter  is  revealed  to  the  faculty 
of  thought  through  a  variety  of  concrete  forms.  It  is 
not  perceived  as  a  general  essence,  but  only  through 
interdependent  phenomena.  Out  of  the  interdepend- 
ence of  the  sense  perceptions  with  our  faculty  of 
thought  there  arise  quantities,  general  concepts,  things, 
true  perceptions,  or  understood  truths. 

Essence  and  truth  are  two  terms  for  the  same 
thing.  Truth,  or  the  essence  and  nature  of  things,  is  a 
theoretical  concept.  As  we  have  seen,  we  receive  im- 
pressions of  things  in  two  ways,  viz.,  a  sense  impres- 
sion and  a  mental  impression,  the  one  practical,  the 
other  theoretical.  Practice  furnishes  us  with  the  sense 
impression,   theory   with   the   mental    nature   of   things. 

Practice  is  the  premise  of  theory,  sense  perception  the 
premise  of  the  nature  which  is  also  called  the  truth. 
The  same  truth  manifests  itself  in  practice  either 
simultaneously  or  consecutively  in  the  same  place  or  in 
different  places.  It  exists  theoretically  as  a  homogeneous 
conception. 

Practice,  phenomena,  sense  perceptions,  are  abso- 
lute qualities,  that  is  to  say  they  have  no  quantitative 
limitation,  they  are  not  restricted  by  time  or  space. 
They  are  absolute  and  infinite  qualities.  The  qualities 
of  a  thing  are  as  infinite  as  its  parts.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  work  of  the  faculty  of  thought,  of  theory, 
creates  at  will  an  infinite  number  of  quantities  and  it 
conceives  every  quality  of  sense  perceptions  in  the 
form  of  quantities,  as  the  essential  nature  of  things,  as 


I 


90 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


truths.  Every  conception  has  a  quahty  of  some 
sense  perception  for  its  object.  Every  object  can  be 
conceived  by  the  faculty  of  thought  only  as  a  quantita- 
tive unit,  as  true  nature,  as  truth. 

The   faculty   of   thought   produces   in   contact   with 
sense   perceptions   that   which  manifests   itself   as   true 
nature,  as  a  general  truth.    A  primitive  concept  ac- 
complishes  this   at   first   only   instinctively,   while   a 
scientific  concept  is  a  conscious  and  voluntary  repeti- 
tion  of   this   primitive   act.     Scientific    understanding 
wanting  to  know  an  object,  such  as  for  instance  heat, 
is    not   hunting    after    the    phenomena    themselves.      It 
does  not  aim  to  see  or  hear  how  heat  melts  iron  or 
wax,  how  it  benefits  in  one  case  or  injures  in  another, 
how  it  makes  eggs  solid  or  ice  liquid,  nor  does  it  con- 
cern itself  with  the  difference  between  the  heat  of  an 
animal,  of  the  sun,  or  of  a  stove.     All  these  things  are 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  faculty  of  understanding, 
only   effects,   phenomena,   qualities.      It   desires    to    get 
at  the  essence,  the  true  nature  of  things,  it  strives  to 
find   a   general   law,   a   concise    scientific   extract,   of 
things  seen,  heard,  and  felt.     The  abstract  nature  of 
things  cannot  be  a  tangible  object.     It  is  a  concept  of 
theory,  of  science,  of  the  faculty  of  thought.     The  un- 
derstanding of  heat  consists  in  singling  out  that  which 
is  common  to  all  phenomena  of  heat,  which  is  essential 
or  true   for   all   heat.     Practically   the  nature   of   heat 
consists    of    the    sum    total    of    all    its    manifestations, 
theoretically  in  its  concept,  scientifically  in  the  analysis 
of  this  concept.    To  analyze  the  concept  of  heat  means  to 
ascertain  that  which  is  common  to  all  manifestations  of 

heat. 

The  general  nature  of  the  thing  is  its  true  nature, 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


91 


the  general  quality  its  true  quality.    We  define  rain 
more  trulv  as  being  wet  than  as  being  fertilizing,  be- 
cause it  gives  moisture  wherever  it  falls,  while  it  ferti- 
lizes only   under   certain   circumstances   and   in  certain 
places.     My  true  friend  is  one  who  is  constant  and 
loyal  to  me  all  my  life  under  all  circumstances.     Of 
course,  we  must  not  believe  in  any  absolute  and  uncon- 
ditional friendship  any  more  than  in  any  absolute  and 
eternal    truth.      Perfectly    true,    perfectly    universal,    is 
only  the  general  existence,  the  universe,  the  absolute 
quantity.     But  the  real  world  is  absolutely  relative,  ab- 
solutely perishable,  an  infinity  of  manifestations,  an 
infinity   of   qualities.     All   truths    are    simply   parts   of 
this  world,  partial   truths.     Semblance   and   truth   flow 
dialectically  into  one  another  like  hard  and  soft,  good 
and  bad,  right  and  wrong,  but  at  the  same  time  they 
remain    different.     Even   though   I   know   that   there 
is  no  rain  which  is  ''fertile  in  itself,"  and  no  friend  who 
is  true  in  an  absolute  sense,  I  may  nevertheless  refer 
to  a  certain  rain  as  fertile  in  relation  to  certain  crops, 
and  I  may  distinguish  between  my  more  or  less  true 

friends. 

The  universe  is  the  truth.  The  universe  is  that 
which  is  universal,  that  is,  things  which  exist  and  are 
perceived.  The  general  mark  of  truth  is  existence, 
because  universal  existence  is  truth.  Now,  existence 
is  not  a  general  abstraction,  but  a  reality  in  the  con- 
crete form  of  sense  perceptions.  The  world  of  sense 
perceptions  has  its  true  and  perceptible  existence  in 
the  passing  and  manifold  manifestations  of  nature  and 
life.  Therefore  all  manifestations  are  recognized  as 
relative  truths,  all  truths  as  concrete  and  temporal 
manifestations.    The  manifestation  of  practice  is  con- 


92 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


sidered  as  a  truth  in  theory,  and  vice  versa,  the  truth 
of  theory  is  manifested  in  practice.     Opposites  are  mu- 
tually  relative.     Truth  and  error  differ  only   compara- 
tively, in  volume  of  degree,  like  being  and  seeming,  life 
and  death,  light  and  dark,  like  all  other  opposites  m  the 
world.     It  is  a  matter  of  course  that  all  things  of  this 
world  are  worldly,  consequently  are  of  the  same  mat- 
ter, the  same  nature,  the  same  family,  the  same  quality. 
In  other  words,  every  volume  of  perceptible  manifes- 
tation  forms   in   contact   with   the  human   faculty  of 
thought  a  being,  a  truth,  a  general  thing.     For  our 
consciousness,  every  particle  of  dust  as  well  as  every 
dust  cloud,  or  any  other  mass  of  material  manifesta- 
tions, is  on  the  one  hand  an  abstract  "thing  in  itself," 
and  on  the  other  a  passing  phenomenon  of  the  abso- 
lute object,  the  universe.     Inside  of  this  universe  the 
various   manifestations  are   systematized  or  generalized 
at  will  and  on  purpose  by  means  of  our  mind.     The 
chemical  element  is  as  much  a  manysided  system  as 
the  organic  cell  or  the  whole  vegetable  kingdom.     The 
smallest  and  the  largest  being  is  divided  into  individu- 
als, species,  families,  classes,  etc.     This  systematiza- 
tion,  this  generalization,  this  generation  of  beings  is 
continued  in  an  ascending  scale  up  to  the  infinity  of 
the  universe,  and  in  the  descending  scale  down  to  the 
infinity  of  the  parts.     In  the  eyes  of  the  faculty  of 
thought  all  qualities  become  abstract  things,  all  things 
relative  qualities. 

Every  thing,  every  sense  perception,  no  matter 
how  subjective  or  shortlived  it  may  be,  is  true,  is  a  cer- 
tain part  of  truth.  In  other  words,  the  truth  exists,  not 
only  in  the  general  existence,  but  every  concrete  existence 
has  also  its  own  distinct  generality  or  truth.     Every 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


93 


object,  whether  it  be  a  mere  passing  idea,  or  a  vola- 
tile  scent,   or  some  tangible  matter,   constitutes   a   sum 
of  manifold  phenomena.    The  faculty  of  thought  turns 
various   quantities  into  c:^,  discerns  the   equality   in 
different  things,   seeks   the  unity  in  the  multiplicity. 
Mind   and   matter   have   at   least   actual   existence   in 
common.     Organic  nature  agrees  with  inorganic  nature 
in  being  material.     It  is  true  that  there  are  wide   di- 
vergences between   man,   monkey,   elephant,  and  plants 
attached   to   the   soil,   but  even   greater   differences   are 
reconciled     under     the     term     ''organism."      However 
much  a  stone  may  differ  from  a  human  heart,  thinking 
reason  will  discover  innumerable  similarities  in  them. 
They  at  least  agree  in  being  matter,  they  are  both 
visible,  tangible,  and  may  be  weighed,  etc.    Their  dif- 
ferences are  as  manifold  as  their  likenesses.    Solomon 
truly  says  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun,  and 
Schiller  also  says  truly  that  the  world  grows  old  and 
again  grows  young.  What  abstract  thing,  being,  existence, 
generality  is  there  that  is  not  manifold  in  its  sense  mani- 
festations,  and   individually   different   from   all   other 
things?       There  are  no  two  drops  of  water  alike.     I 
am  now  in  many  respects  different  from  what  I  was 
an  hour  ago,  and  the  likeness  between  my  brother  and 
myself  is  only  relatively  greater  than  the  likeness  be- 
tween a  watch  and  an  oyster.     In  short,  the  faculty 
of  thought  is  a   faculty    of  absolute  generalization,   it 
classes  all  things  without  exception  under  one  head,  it 
comprises  and  understands  everything  uniformly,  while 
sense  perceptions  show  absolutely  everything  in  a  differ- 
ent, new  and  individual  light. 

If  we  apply  this  metaphysics*  to  our  study,  the  fac- 


*E.  g.,   this  all-embracing  physics. — Editor. 


94 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


ulty  of  thought,  we  sec  that  its  functions,  hke  all 
other  things,  arc  material   manifestations,   which  are 
all  equally  true.     All  manifestations  of  the  mind,  all 
ideas,  opinions,  errors,  partake  of  a  certain  truth,  all 
of  them  have  a  kernel  of  truth.    Just  as  inevitably  as 
a  painter  derives  all  forms  of  his  creation  from  per- 
ceptible objects'  around  him,  so  are  all  ideas,  images 
of  true  things,  theories  of  true  objects.    So  far  as  per- 
ceptions are  perceptions,  it  is  a  matter  of  course  that 
all  perceptions  perceive  something.     So  far  as  knowl- 
edge  is   knowledge,   it   requires   no   explanation    that 
all  knowledge  knows  something.     This  follows  from 
the  rule  of  identity,     according  to  which  a  equals  a, 
or  from  the  rule  of  contradiction,  according  to  wdiich 

100  is  not  1,000. 

All  perceptions  are  thoughts.     One  might  claim, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  all  thoughts  are  not  percep- 
tions.     One    might    define    "perceiving'    as    a    special 
kind  of  thought,  as  real  objective  thought  in  distinc- 
tion  from    supposing,   believing,   or   imagining.      But 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  all  thoughts  have  a  common 
nature,  in  spite  of  their  many  dififerences.     Thought 
is  treated  in  the  court  of  the  faculty  of  thought  like 
all  other  things,  it  is  made  uniform.     No  matter  how 
different  the  thoughts   I   had  yesterday    may   be   from 
those  I  have  to-day,  no  matter  how  much  the  thoughts 
of  different  human  beings  may  vary  at  different  times, 
no  matter  how  clearly  we  may  distinguish  between 
such   thoughts   as  those   expressed   by   the   terms   idea, 
conception,    judgment,    conclusion,    impression,    etc., 
they  each  and  all  possess  the  same  common  and  uni- 
versal nature,  because  all  of  them  are  manifestations 
of  mind. 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


95 


It  follows,  then,  that  the  difference  between  true 
and  erroneous  thoughts,  betw^een  understanding  and 
misunderstanding,  like  all  other  differences,  is  only 
relative.  A  thought  "in  itself"  is  neither  false  nor 
true,  it  is  either  of  these  only  in  relation  to  some  other 
object.  Thoughts,  conceptions,  theories,  natures, 
truths,  all  have  this  in  common  that  they  belong  to 
some  object.  We  have  seen  that  any  object  is  a  part 
of  the  multiplicity  of  sense  perceptions  in  the  world 
outside  of  our  brains.  After  as  much  of  the  universal 
being  as  constitutes  the  object  which  is  to  be  under- 
stood has  been  defined  by  some  customary  term  of 
language,  truth  is  to  be  found  in  the  discovery  of  the 
general  nature  of  this  perceptible  part  of  being. 

The  perceptible  parts  of  being  which  constitute 
the  things  of  this  world  have  not  only  a  semblance 
and  manifestation,  but  also  a  true  nature  which  is 
given  by  means  of  their  manifestation.  The  nature 
of  things  is  as  infinite  in  number  as  the  world  of  sense 
perceptions  is  infinitely  divisible  in  space  and  time. 
Every  part  of  any  phenomenon  has  its  own  nature, 
every  special  phenomenon  has  its  general  truth.  A 
phenomenon  is  perceived  in  touch  with  the  senses, 
while  the  true  or  essential  nature  of  things  is  perceived 
in  contact  with  our  faculty  of  thought.  In  this  way 
we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of 
speaking  here,  where  the  nature  of  things  is  up  for 
discussion,  simultaneously  of  the  faculty  of  thought, 
and  on  the  other  hand  of  dealing  with  the  nature  of 
things  when  the  faculty  of  thought  is  our  main  sub- 
ject. 

We  said  at  the  outset:  The  criterion  of  truth  in- 
cludes  the   criterion  of  reason.     Truth,   like   reason, 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


97 


90 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN   CRAIX   WORK 


consists  in  developing  a  general  concept,  or  an  ab- 
stract theorv,   fron.  a  given  sun.  of   sense  perceptions. 
Therefore  it  is  not  abstract  truth  which  is  the  criterion 
of  true  understanding,  but  we  rather  refer  to  that  un- 
derstanding as  being  true  which  produces  the    ruth 
or    the    general    hall-mark    of    any    concrete   object. 
Truth  must  be  objective,  that  is  to  say  it  must  be  the 
truth      about      some      concrete      object.      Perceptions 
cannot    be    true    to    themselves,    they    are    true    only 
in  relation  to  some  definite  object,  and  to  some  out- 
side  facf^.     The   work   of   understanding   consists   in 
the  abstraction  of  the  general  hall-mark  from  concrete 
objects.    The  concrete  is  the  measure  of  the  general, 
the  standard  of  truth.    Whatever  is,  is  true,  no  matter 
how  much  or  how  little  true  it  may  be.    Once  we  have 
found  existence,   its  general   nature   follows   as   truth 
itself.     The  difference  between  that  which  is  more  or 
less   general,   between   being   and   seeming,   between 
truth  and  error,  is  limited  to  definite  conditions,  for 
it   presupposes   the   relation   to   some   special   object. 
Whether  a  perception  is  true  or  false  will,  therefore, 
depend  not  so  much  on  perception  as  on  the  scope  of 
the  question  which  perception  tries  to  solve  of  its  own 
accord  or  which  it  is  called  upon  to  solve  by  external 
circumstances.     A   perfect    understanding   is   possible 
only  within   definite   limits.     A   perfect   truth   is   one 
which  is  always  aware  of  its  imperfection.     For^  in- 
stance, it  is  perfectly  true  that  all  bodies  have  weight 
only  because  the   concept   of  "body"  has   previously 
been  limited  to  things  which  have  weight.     After  rea- 
son has  assigned  the  conception  of  "body  in  general" 
to  things  of  various  weights,  it  is  no  longer  a  matter 
for  surprise  to  find  that  bodies  must  inevitably  have 


weight.     Once  it  is  assumed  that  the  term  "bird"  was 
abstracted   exclusively   from   flying  animals,  we   may 
be  sure  that  all  birds  fly,  whether  they  are  in  heaven, 
on  earth,  or  in  any  other  place.     And  to  explain  this 
we    do    not    require   the   belief   in  a   priori   conceptions 
which  are  supposed  to  differ  from  empirical  concep- 
tions by  their  strict  necessity  and  generality.     Truths 
are  valid  only  under  certain  conditions,  and  under  cer- 
tain conditions  errors  may  be  true.     It  is  a  true  per- 
ception that  the  sun  is  shining,  provided  we  under- 
stand that  the  sky  is  not  covered  by  clouds.     And  it 
is  no  less  true  that  a  straight  stick  becomes  crooked 
in   flowing  water,  provided   we  understand   that  this 
truth   is  an  optical  one.     Tritfh  is  that  zvhich  is  com- 
mon   or    general    to    our    reasoning    faculty    within    a 
given    circle    of   sense   perceptions.      To    call   within    a 
definite   circle   of  sense   perceptions   that  zvhich   is   ex- 
ceptional  or  special   the  rule   or  the  general,   is  error. 
Error,  the  opposite  of  truth,  arises  when  the  faculty 
of  thought,  or  consciousness,  inadvertently  or  short- 
sightedly  and   without   previous   experience   concedes 
to  certain  phenomena  a  more  general   scope  than  is 
supported  by  the  senses,  for  instance  wdien  it  hastily 
attributes  to  what  is  in  fact  only  an  optical  existence, 
a  supposed  plastic  existence  also. 

The  judgment  of  error  is  a  prejudice.  Truth  and 
error,  understanding  and  misunderstanding,  knowing 
and  not  knowing,  have  their  common  habitation  in 
the  faculty  of  thought  which  is  the  organ  of  science. 
Thought  at  large  is  the  general  expression  of  experi- 
enced facts  perceived  by  the  senses,  and  it  includes 
errors  as  well.  Error  is  distinguished  from  truth  in 
that  the  former  assigns  to  any  definite  fact  of  which 


98  THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 

it  is  a  manifestation,  a  ^vidor  and  more  general  exis- 
e>^ce  than  i.  supported  by  sense  perceptions  and  ex- 
pedence.    Unwarranted  assumption  '^ '^Vruntil ^r  " 
A  glass  bead  does  not  become  a  counterfeit,  until  it  pre 
tends  to  be  a  genuine  pearl. 

Schleiden   says  of  the  eye:     "When   the   excited 
blood  expands  the  veins  and  presses  on  the  nerves 
we  feel  it  in  the  fingers  as  pain,  we  see  it  m  the  eyes 
as  forked  lightning.     And  thus  we  obtain  the  rrre- 
futable  proof  that  our  conceptions  are  free  creations 
of  the   mind,   that   we  do  not   perceive   the   external 
world  as  it  really  is,  but  that  its  reflex  actions  on  us 
simplv  give  rise  to  a  peculiar  brain  activity,  on  our 
part  '  The  products  of  this  activity   are   frequently 
connected  with  certain  processes  of  the  external  world 
but  frequentlv  thev  are  not.    We  close  our  eyes  and 
we  see  a  circle  of  light,  but  there  is  in  reality  no  shin- 
in-  bodv.     It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  may  be  a  great 
and  dangerous  source  of  errors  of  all  kinds.     From 
the  teasing  forms  of  a  misty  moonlight  night  to  the 
threatening  and  insanity-producing  visions  of  the  be- 
liever in  ghosts  we  meet  a  series  of  illusions  which 
are  not  derived  from  any  direct  processes  of  external 
nature,  but  belong  to  the  field  of  the  free  activity  of 
the  mind  which  is  subject  to  error.     It  requires  great 
judamcnt  and  wide  education,  before  the  mind  learns 
to  break  away  from  all  its  own  errors  ^nd  to  control 
them.    Reading  in  general  seems  so  easy,  and  yet  it  is  a 
difficult  art.    It  is  only  by  degrees  that  the  mind  learns 
to  understand  which  of  the  messages  of  the  nerves 
may  be  trusted  and  used  as  a  basis  for  conceptions. 
The  light,  if  we  consider  it  entirely  by  itself,  is  not 
clear,  not  yellow,  nor  blue  nor  red.     The  light  is  a 


jiiiiili,rfr<Kiriiiini*lifiM 


»Bt^,i.i....l1n^  ■•im^-ii 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


99 


movement  of  a  very  fine  and  everywhere  diffused 
substance,  the  ether." 

The  beautiful  world  of  light  and  splendor,  of  color 
and  form,  is  supposed  not  to  be  a  perception  of  some- 
thing which  really  is.  'Through  the  thick  covering 
of  the  grape  arbor,  a  ray  of  sunlight  undulates  into 
the  cooling  shadows.  You  think  you  see  the  ray  of 
light  itself,  but  what  you  really  see  is  nothing  but  a 
flock  of  dust  particles."  The  truth  about  light  and 
color  is  said  to  be  that  they  are  ''waves  rushing 
through  ether  in  restless  succession  at  the  rate  of 
1G0,000  miles  per  second."  This  true  physical  nature 
of  light  and  color  is  supposed  to  be  so  illusive,  that 
"it  required  the  sharp  intellects  of  the  greatest  think- 
ers to  reveal  to  us  this  true  nature  of  light.  We  find 
that  every  one  of  our  senses  is  susceptible  only  to 
definite  external  influences,  and  that  the  stimulation 
of  dift'erent  senses  produces  different  conceptions  in 
our  mind.  Thus  the  sense  organs  are  the  mediators 
between  the  external  soulless  world  (undulations  of 
the  ether),  which  is  revealed  to  us  by  science,  and  the 
beautiful  world  of  sense  perceptions  in  which  we  find 
ourselves  with  our  minds." 

Schleiden  thus  gives  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that 
there  is  still  a  great  deal  of  embarrassment,  even  in 
our  times,  when  the  understanding  of  these  two 
worlds  is  under  discussion,  that  there  is  still  much 
helpless  groping  to  explain  the  connection  between  the 
world  of  thought,  of  knowledge  or  science,  which  is 
in  this  case  represented  by  undulations  of  the  ether, 
and  between  the  world  of  our  five  senses,  represented 
by  the  bright  and  colored  lights  of  the  eyes  or  of  re- 
ality.    At  the  same  time  this  illustration  shows  how 


100  THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BKAI.S    WORK 

queer  the  traditional  survivals  of  speculative  pbibsophy 
sound  in  the  mouth  of  a  modern  sc.enfst.     1  he  con 
^"   condition  of  this  mode  of  thought  .s  seen  in  the 
tinc^on     between     "an     external     sense-perce.ved 

vo^d  otscience"  and  another  one,  "in  wh.ch  we  find 
woriu  oi  scicii>-  ^^     Til r-  distinction  between 

ourselves  with  our  mmd..  Ihe  f^'Stmctio 
the  senses  and  the  mind,  between  theory  a"d  P^^^  "^ 
between  the  special  and  the  general,  between  truth 
and  error  has  been  noticed  by  such  thinkers,  but  they 
have  no  solution  for  it.  They  know  there  .s  some- 
thTng  missing,  but  they  do  not  know  where  to  look 
for  it,  and  therefore  they  arc  confused 

The  -reat  scientific  achievement  of  the  XlXth  cen 
tury  consists   in   the  victory  over   speculation,   over 
knowledge  without  sense  perception,  in  the  delivery 
of  le  senses  from  the  thraldom  of  such  knowledge,  and 
in  the  foundation  of  empirical  investigation     lo  ac- 
Inowledge  the  theoretical  value  of  this  achievement 
means  to  come  to  an  understanding  about  the  source 
of  error.    Contrary  to  a  philosophy  that  tries  to  dis- 
cover truth  with  the  mind,  and  error  with  the  senses 
we  seek  for  truth  with  the  senses  and  regard  the  mind 
as  the  source  of  errors.    The  belief  in  certain  messages 
of  the  nerves  which  are  alone  worthy  of  confidence 
and  which  can  be  understood  only  by  degrees  without 
any  specific  mark  of  distinction,  is  a  superstition.     Let 
us  have  confidence  in  all  testimonials  of -the  senses. 
There  is  nothing  false  to  be  separated  from  the  genu- 
ine    The  supernatural  mind  idea  is  the  only  deceiver 
whenever  it  undertakes  to  disregard  the  sense  percep- 
tions,   and,    instead    of    being    the    interpreter    of    the 
senses,  tries  to  enlarge  their  statements   and   repeat 
what  has  not  been  dictated.    The  eye,  in  seeing  forked 


iri 


THE  NATURE  OF  THINGS 


101 


i'o-htnins  or  radiant  circles  when  the  blood  is  excited 
or  a  pressure  exerted  on  it,  perceives  no  more  errors 
than  it  does  in  perceiving  any  other  manifestation  of 
the  external  world.  It  is  our  faculty  of  thought  which 
makes  a  mistake,  by  regarding  without  further  in- 
quiry such  subjective  events  as  objective  bodies.  One 
who  sees  ghosts  does  not  commit  any  mistake,  until 
he  claims  that  his  personal  apparition  is  a  general 
phenomenon,  until  he  prematurely  takes  something 
for  an  experience  which  he  has  not  experienced.  Error 
is  an  offense  against  the  law  of  truth  which  prescribes 
to  our  consciousness  that  it  must  remember  the  limits 
within  which  a  perception  is  true,  or  general.  Error 
makes  out  of  something  special  a  generality,  out  of  a 
predicate  a  subject,  and  takes  the  part  for  the  whole. 
Error  makes  a  priori  conclusions,  while  truth,  its  opposite, 
arrives  at  understanding  by  a  posteriori  reasoning. 

A  priori  and  a  posteriori  understanding  are  re- 
lated in  the  same  way  as  philosophy  and  natural  sci- 
ence, taking  the  latter  in  the  widest  meaning  of  the 
term,  that  of  science  in  general.  The  contrast  be- 
tween believing  and  knowing  is  duplicated  in  that 
between  philosophy  and  natural  science.  Speculative 
philosophy,  like  religion,  lives  on  faith.  The  modern 
world  has  transformed  faith  into  science.  The  re- 
actionists in  politics  who  demand  that  science  retrace 
its  steps  desire  its  return  to  faith.  The  content  of  faith 
is  acquired  without  exertion.  Faith  makes  a  priori 
perceptions,  while  science  arrives  at  its  knowledge  by 
hard  a  posteriori  study.  To  give  up  faith  means  to 
give  up  taking  things  easy.  And  to  confine  science  to 
a  posteriori  knowledge  means  to  decorate  it  with  the 
characteristic  mark  of  modern  times,  work. 


102  THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 

It  is  not  a  result  of  scientific  study,  but  merely  a 
freak  of  philosophy  on  the  part  of  Schle.den  to  deny 
he  realitv  and  truth  of  light  phenomena,  to  call  them 
fantasmagoria  created  by  the   free  play  of  the   m,nd. 
Hil   superstitious  belief  in   philosophical   speculation 
„,isleads  him  into  abandoning  the  scentific  method 
of  induction  and  speaking  of  "waves  "-h-g    J^°^f 
ether  m  restless  succession  at  the  rate  of  100,000  miles 
per  hour"  as  being  the  real  and  true  nature  of  light 
and  color,  in  contradistinction  to  the  color  phenoniena 
of  light.     The  perversion  of  this  mode  of  procedure 
becomes  evident  by  his  referring  to  the  material  world 
of  the  eyes  as  a  "creation  of  the  mind"  and  to  the  un- 
dulations of  the  ether,  revealed  by  the  "sharpjutellect 
of  the  greatest  thinkers"  as  "physical  nature. 

The  truth  of  science  maintains  the  same  relation 
to  the  sense  perception  that  the  general  does  to  the 
special.     \\'aves  of  light,  the  so-called  truth  of  light 
and  color,  represent  the  "true"  nature  of  light  only 
in  so  far  as  they  represent  what  is  common  to  all 
light  phenomena,  whether  they  are  white,  yellow,  blue 
or  any  other  color.     The  world  of  the  mind,  or  of 
science  finds  its  raw  material,  its  premise,  its  proof, 
its  beginning,  and  its  boundary  in  sense  perception. 
When  we  have  learned   that  the  nature,  or   the 
truth   of  things  is  not  back  of  their  phenomena,  but 
can  be  perceived  onlv  by  the  help  of  phenomena,  and 
that  it  does  not  exist  "in  itself."  but  only  in  connection 
with  the  faculty  of  understanding,  that  the  nature  is 
separated  from  the  phenomena  only  by  thought ;  and 
when  we  see  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  faculty  of 
understanding  does  not  derive  conceptions  out  of  it- 
self, but  onlv  out  of  their  relations  with  some  phe- 


THE    NATURE   OF   THINGS 


103 


1 


nomenon;  then  this  discussion  of  the  "nature  of 
things"  is  an  evidence  that  the  nature  of  the  faculty  of 
thought  is  a  conception  which  we  have  obtained  from 
its  sense  manifestations.  To  understand  that  the 
faculty  of  thought,  although  universal  in  the  choice 
of  its  objects,  is  nevertheless  limited  in  that  it  requires 
some  object;  to  recognize  that  the  true  thought  pro- 
cess, that  is  to  say  the  thought  with  a  scientific  result, 
dififers  from  unscientific  thinking  by  consciously  at- 
taching itself  to  some  external  object;  to  realize  that 
truth,  or  universality,  is  not  perceived  "in  itself,"  but 
can  be  perceived  only  by  means  of  some  given  object; 
this  frequently  varied  statemsnt  rceals  the  nature 
of  the  faculty  of  thought.  This  statement  re-appears 
at  the  end  of  every  chapter,  because  all  special  truths, 
all  special  chapters,  serve  only  to  demonstrate  the  gen- 
eral chapter  of  universal  truth. 


IV 


THE  PRACTICE  OF   REASON   IN   PHYSICAL  SCIENCE 

Although  we  know  that  reason  is  attached  to  per- 
ceptible matter,  to  physical  objects,  so  that  science 
can  never  be  anything  else  but  the  science  of  the 
physical,  still  we  may,  according  to  the  prevailing 
ideas  and  usage  of  language,  separate  physics  from 
logic  and  ethics,  and  thus  distinguish  them  as  dififcrent 
forms  of  science.  The  problem  is  then  to  demonstrate 
that  in  physics  as  well  as  in  logic,  as  also  in  ethics, 
the  general  or  intellectual  perceptions  can  be  prac- 
ticallv  obtained  onlv  on  the  basis  of  concrete  percep- 
tible  facts. 

This  practice  of  reason,  to  generate  thought  from 
matter,  to  arrive  at  understanding  by  sense  percep- 
tions, to  produce  the  general  out  of  the  concrete,  has 
been  universally  accepted  in  physical  investigation, 
but  only  in  practice.  The  inductive  method  is  em- 
ployed, and  one  is  aware  of  this  fact,  but  it  is  not  un- 
derstood that  the  nature  of  inductive  science  is  the 
nature  of  science  in  general,  of  reason.  The  process 
of  thought  is  misunderstood.  Physical  science  lacks 
the  theory  of  understanding  and  for  this  reason  often 
falls  out  of  its  practical  step.  The  faculty  of  thought 
is  still  an  unknown,  mysterious,  mystical  being  for 
natural  science.  Either  it  confounds  the  function  with 
the  organ,  the  mind  with  the  brain,  as  do  the  ma- 

104 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  REASON 


105 


terialists,  or  it  thinks  with  the  idealists  that  the  fac- 
ulty of  thought  is  an  imperceptible  object  outside  of 
its    field.      We    see    modern    investigators    marching 
toward   their   goal   with   firm   and   uniform   steps,   so 
far  as  physical  matters  are  concerned.    But  they  aim- 
lessly grope  around  in  the  abstract  relations  of  these 
things.     The   inductive  method   has   been   practically 
adopted  by  natural  science  and  its  successes  have  se- 
cured a  great  reputation  for  it.     On  the  other  hand, 
the  speculative  method  has  become  discredited  by  its 
failures.    There  is,  however,  no  conscious  understand- 
ing of  these  various  methods  of  thought.    We  see  the 
men  of  physical  research,  when  they  are  outside  of  their 
special  field,  ofifer  lawyer-like  speculations  in  lieu  of 
scientific  facts.     While  they  arrive  at  the  special  truths 
of  their  chosen  fields  by  sense  perceptions,  they  still 
pretend  to  derive  speculative  truths  out  of  the  depths 
of  their  own  minds. 

Listen  to  the  following  statements  of  Alexander 
von  Humboldt,  which  he  makes  in  the  initial  argu- 
ment of  his  "Cosmos"  in  regard  to  speculation :  "The 
most  important  result  of  physical  research  by  sense 
perception  is  this:  that  it  finds  the  element  of  unity 
in  a  multitude  of  forms;  that  it  grasps  all  the  individ- 
ual manifestations  offered  by  the  discoveries  of  re- 
cent times,  carefully  scrutinizes  and  distinguishes 
them;  yet  does  not  succumb  under  their  mass;  that 
it  fulfills  the  sublime  mission  of  the  human  being,  of 
understanding  the  nature  of  things  which  is  hidden 
under  the  cover  of  phenomena.  In  this  way  our  aim 
reaches  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  the  senses,  and 
we  may  succeed  in  grasping  the  nature  by  controlling 
the   raw   material   of   empirical   observation    through 


106 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  REASON 


lor 


ideas.  In  my  observations  of  the  scientific  treatment 
of  general  cosmic  phenomena,  I  am  not  deriving  unity 
out  of  a  few  fundamental  principles  found  by  specula- 
tive reason.  My  work  is  the  expression  of  a  thoughtful 
observation  of  empirical  phenomena  seen  as  one  and 
the  same  nature.  I  am  not  going  to  venture  into  a  field 
which  is  foreign  to  me.  What  I  call  physical  cosmol- 
ogy does  not,  therefore,  aspire  to  the  rank  of  a  rational 
science  of  nature.  .  .  .  True  to  the  character  of 
my  former  occupation  and  writings,  which  were  de- 
voted to  experiments,  measurements,  and  investiga- 
tions of  facts,  I.  confine  myself  in  this  work  to  empiri- 
cal observ^ations.  It  is  the  only  ground  on  which  I 
can  move  with  a  measure  of  security."  In  the  same 
breath  Humboldt  says  that  *'wit1iout  the  earnest  de- 
sire for  the  knowledge  of  concrete  facts  any  great 
and  universal  world  philosophy  would  be  merely  a 
castle  in  the  air"  and  in  another  place  that  *'an  un- 
derstanding of  the  universe  by  speculative  and  intro- 
spective reason  would  represent  a  still  more  sublime 
aim"  than  understanding  by  empirical  thought.  And 
on  page  68  of  volume  I.  he  says :  "I  am  far  from  find- 
ing fault  with  endeavors  of  others  the  success  of  which 
still  remains  in  doubt,  when  I  have  had  no  practical 
experience  with  them." 

Now  natural  science  shares  with  Humboldt  the 
consciousness  that  the  practice  of  reason  in  physical 
research  consists  exclusively  in  "perceiving  the  ele- 
ment of  unity  in  a  multitude  of  forms."  But  on  the 
other  hand,  though  it  does  not  always  admit  its  be- 
lief in  speculative  introspection  as  frankly  as  Hum- 
boldt does,  it  nevertheless  proves  that  it  does  not  fully 
understand  the  practice  of  science  and  that  it  believes 


I 


\ 


in  a  metaphysical  as  well  as  a  physical  science  by  using 
the  speculative  method  in  the  treatment  of  so-called 
philosophical  topics,  in  which  the  element  of  unity  is 
supposed  to  be  discovered  by  introspective  reason  in- 
stead of  an  analysis  of  multiform  sense  perceptions, 
and  it  demonstrates  its  lack  of  unity  by  being  un- 
aware of  the  unscientific  character  of  disagreements, 
by  believing  in  a  metaphysical  science  outside  of  the 
physical  domain.  The  relations  between  phenomenon 
and  its  nature,  cause  and  effect,  matter  and  force,  sub- 
stance and  spirit,  are  certainly  physical  ones.  But 
what  is  there  of  unity  that  science  teaches  about  them  ? 
Plainly  then,  the  work  of  science,  like  that  of  the 
farmer,  has  so  far  been  done  only  practically,  but  not 
scientifically,  not  with  a  predetermination  of  success. 
Understanding,  that  is  to  say  the  practice  of  under- 
standing, is  well  applied  in  science,  I  readily  admit. 
But  the  instrument  of  this  understanding,  the  faculty 
of  thought,  it  misunderstood.  We  find  that  natural 
science,  instead  of  applying  this  faculty  scientifically, 
simply  experiments  with  it.  What  is  the  reason  for 
this?  Natural  science  has  neglected  the  critique  of 
reason,  the  theory  of  science,  logic. 

Just  as  the  handle  and  the  blade  of  a  knife  consti- 
tute its  general  content,  so  we  found  that  the  general 
content  of  reason  was  the  universal,  the  general  "it- 
self." W'e  know  that  it  does  not  produce  this  con- 
tent out  of  itself,  but  out  of  given  objects,  and  these 
objects  are  the  sum  of  all  natural  or  physical  things. 
The  object  of  reason  is,  therefore,  an  infinite,  unlimited, 
absolute  quantity.  This  infinite  quantity  manifests  it- 
self in  finite  quantities.  In  die  treatment  of  relatively 
small  quantities  of  nature  the  true  essence  of  reason, 


108 


THE  NATURE  OF    HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


the  true  method  of  understanding,  is  well  recognized. 
It  remains  to  be  demonstrated  that  the  great  relations 
of  the  world,  the  treatment  of  which  is  still  doubtful, 
are  likewise  intelligible  by  the  same  method.  Cause 
and  effect,  mind  and  matter,  matter  and  force,  are  such 
great  w^orld  problems,  and  they  are  of  a  physical  char- 
acter. We  shall  demonstrate  that  the  most  general 
distinction  between  reason  and  its  object  furnishes  the 
key  to  the  solution  of  the  great  world  problems. 

(a)     Cause  and  Effect. 

'The  nature  of  natural  history,"  says  F.  W.  Bes- 
sell,  "lies  in  the  fact  that  it  does  not  consider  phenom- 
ena as  facts  in  themselves,  but  looks  for  their  causes. 
The  knowledge  of  nature  is  thus  reduced  to  the  mini- 
mum number  of  facts."  But  the  causes  of  the  phenom- 
ena of  nature  had  been  investigated  even  before  the 
age  of  natural  history.  The  characteristic  mark  of 
natural  history  is  not  so  much  that  it  investigates 
causes,  but  that  the  causes  which  it  investigates  have 
a  peculiar  nature  and  a  particular  quality. 

Inductive  science  has  materially  changed  the  con- 
ception of  causes.  It  has  retained  the  term,  but  uses 
it  in  a  different  sense  from  that  employed  by  specula- 
tion. The  naturalist  conceives  of  causes  differently 
within  his  special  field  and  outside  of  it ;  here,  outside  of 
his  specialty,  he  frequently  indulges  in  introspective  spec- 
ulation, because  he  understands  science  and  its  cause  in  a 
concrete,  but  not  in  a  general  way.  The  unscientific  forces 
are  of  a  supernatural  make-up,  they  are  transcendental 
spirits,  gods,  forces,  little  and  big  goblins.  The  orig- 
inal conception  of  causes  is  an  anthropomorphic  one. 
In  a  state  of  inexperience,  man  measures  the  objective 


I 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  REASON 


109 


by  a  subjective  standard,  judges  the  world  by  himself. 
Just  as  he  creates  things  with  conscious  intent,  so  he 
attributes  to  nature  his  human  manner,  imagines  the 
existence  of  an  external  and  creative  cause  of  the 
phenomena  of  sense  perception,  similar  to  himself  who 
is  the  special  cause  of  his  own  creations.  This  sub- 
jective mood  is  to  blame  for  the  fact  that  the  strug- 
gle for  objective  understanding  has  so  long  been  in 
vain.  The  unscientifically  conceived  cause  is  a  spec- 
ulation of  the  a  priori  kind. 

If  the  term  understanding  is  retained  for  subjec- 
tive understanding,  then  objective  science  differs  from 
it  in  that  such  a  science  penetrates  to  the  causes  of  its 
objects  not  by  faith  or  introspective  speculation,  but 
by  experience  and  induction,  not  a  priori,  but  a  pos- 
teriori. Natural  science  looks  for  causes  not  outside 
or  back  of  nature's  phenomena,  but  within  or  by 
means  of  them.  Modern  research  seeks  no  external 
creator  of  causes,  but  rather  the  immanent  system, 
the  method  or  general  mode  of  the  various  phenomena 
as  they  are  given  by  succession  in  time.  The  unscien- 
tifically conceived  cause  is  a  ''thing  in  itself,"  a  little 
god  who  generates  his  effects  independently  and  hides 
behind  them.  The  scientific  conception  of  causes,  on 
the  other  hand,  looks  only  for  the  theory  of  effects, 
the  general  element  of  phenomena.  To  investigate  a 
cause  means  then  to  generalize  a  variety  of  pheno- 
mena, to  arrange  the  multiplicity  of  experienced  facts 
under  one  scientific  rule.  ''The  knowledge  of  nature 
is  thus  reduced  to  the  minimum  number  of  facts." 

The  commonplace  and  inept  knowledge  dilTers  from 
the  most  exalted,  rarest,  and  newly  discovered  sci- 
ence in  the  same  way  in  which  a  petty  and  childish 


110 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN   PRAIN   WORK 


superstition  differs  from  the  historical  superstition 
of  a  whole  period.  For  this  reason  we  may  well 
choose  our  illustrations  from  our  daily  circle,  instead 
of  looking  for  them  in  the  so-called  higher  regions  of 
a  remote  science.  Human  common  sense  had  long 
practiced  the  investigation  of  causes  by  inductive  and 
scientific  methods,  before  science  realized  that  it  would 
have  to  pursue  its  higher  aims  in  the  same  way. 
Common  sense  does  arrive  at  the  faith  in  a  mysteri- 
ous cause  of  speculative  reason,  just  like  the  natural- 
ist, as  soon  as  it  leaves  the  field  of  its  immediate  en- 
vironment. In  order  to  stand  firmly  on  the  ground 
of  real  science,  every  one  requires  the  understanding 
of  the  manner  in  which  inductive  reason  investigates 
its  causes. 

To  this  end  let  us  glance  briefly  at  the  outcome  of 
the  study  of 'the  nature  of  reason.  We  know  that  the 
faculty  of  understanding  is  not  a  "thing  in  and  by 
itself,"  because  it  becomes  real  only  in  contact  with 
some  object.  But  whatever  we  know  of  any  object, 
is  known  not  alone  through  the  object,  but  also 
through  the  faculty  of  reason.  Consciousness,  like 
all  other  being,  is  relative.  Understanding  is  contact 
with  a  variety  of  objects.  To  knowledge  there  is  at- 
tached distinction,  subject  and  object,  variety  in  unity. 
Thus  things  become  mutual  causes  and  mutual  ef- 
fects. The  entire  world  of  phenomena,  of  which 
thought  is  but  a  part,  a  form,  is  an  absolute  circle,  in 
which  the  beginning  and  end  is  everywhere  and  no- 
where, in  which  everything  is  at  the  same  time  es- 
sence and  semblance,  cause  and  effect,  general  and 
concrete.  Just  as  all  nature  is  in  the  last  instance 
one  sole  general  unity,  in  view  of  which   all  other 


! 


THE  PR  AC  tic::  of  reason 


111 


unities  become  a  multitude,  so  this  same  nature,  or 
objectivity,  or  world  of  sense  perceptions,  or  what- 
ever else  we  may  call  the  sum  of  all  phenomena  or 
effects,  is  the  final  cause  of  all  things,  compared  to 
which  all  other  causes  become  effects.  But  we  must 
remember  that  this  cause  of  all  causes  is  only  the  sum 
of  all  effects,  not  a  transcendental  or  superior  being. 
Every  cause  has  its  effect,  every  effect  causes  some- 
thing. 

^^^3-  ^^nnr  rnnnot  br  phygVRlly  separated  from  its 
effect  any  more  than  the  visible  can  be  separated  from 
the  eye,  the  taste  from  the  tongue,  in  brief  the  general 
from  the  concrete.  Nevertheless,  the  faculty  of 
thought  may  separate  the  one  from  the  other.  We 
must  keep  in  mind  that  this  separation  is  a  mere  for- 
mality of  thought,  although  it  is  a  formality  which  is 
necessary  in  order  to  be  reasonable  or  conscious,  in 
order  to  act  scientifically.  The  practice  or  understand- 
ing, or  scientific  practice,  derives  the  concrete  from  the 
general,  the  natural  things  from  nature.  But  who- 
ever has  been  behind  the  scenes,  and  has  looked  at 
the  faculty  of  thought  at  work,  knows  that,  conversely 
the  general  is  derived  from  the  concrete,  the  concept 
of  nature  from  natural  things.  The  theory  of  under- 
standing or  science  teaches  us  that  the  antecedent  is 
understood  by  its  consequent,  the  cause  by  its  effect, 
while  our  practical  understanding  regards  the  after 
as  a  consequence  of  the  before,  the  effect  as  a  result 
of  the  cause.  The  faculty  of  understanding,  the  organ 
of  generalization,  regards  its  opposite,  the  concrete, 
as  secondary,  while  the  faculty  of  thought  which  un- 
derstands itself  regards  it  as  primary.  However,  the 
practice  of  understanding  is  not  to  be  changed  by  its 


■« 


I 


112 


THE  NATURE  Ui    iiUMA.N    liRAIX    WORK 


THE   PRACTICE  OF   REASON 


113 


theory,  nor  can  it  be;  the  theory  intends  simply  to 
render  the  steps  of  consciousness  linn.  The  scientific 
farmer  differs  from  th.e  practical  farmer,  not  because 
he  employs  theory  and  method,  for  both  do  that,  but 
because  he  understands  the  theory,  while  the  practical 
man  theorizes  instinctively. 

To  continue:  From  a  given  multitude  of  facts, 
reason  generates  truth  in  general,  and  out  of  a  suc- 
cession of  forms  and  transformations  it  abstracts  the 
true  cause.  Just  as  absolute  multiplicity  is  the  nature 
of  space,  so  absolute  variability  is  the  nature  of  time. 
Every  particle  of  time  and  space  is  new,  original,  and 
has  never  been  there  before.  The  faculty  of  thought 
enables  us  to  find  our  way  through  this  absolute 
medley  by  abstracting  general  concepts  out  of  the 
multitude  of  things  in  space,  and  tracing  the  varia- 
tions of  time  to  general  causes.  The  entire  nature 
of  reason  consists  in  generalizing  sense  perceptions, 
in  abstracting  the  connnon  elements  out  of  concrete 
things.  Whoever  does  not  fully  understand  reason 
by  understanding  that  it  is  the  organ  of  generaliza- 
tion forgets  that  understanding  requires  an  object 
which  must  remain  something  outside  of  its  concep- 
tion, since  such  object  cannot  be  dissolved  by  its  con- 
ception. The  being  of  the  reasoning  faculty  cannot 
be  understood  any  more  than  being  in  general.  Or 
rather,  being  is  understood  when  we  take  it  in  its  gen- 
erality. Not  being  itself,  but  the  general  element  of 
being,  is  understood  by  the  faculty  of  thought. 

Let  us  realize,  for  instance,  the  process  which  takes 
place  wdien  reason  understands  something  it  did  not 
know  before.  Think  of  some  peculiar,  unexpected 
and   unknown   chemical   transformation   which   takes 


place  suddenly  and  without  apparent  cause  in  some 
mixture.  Assume  furthermore  that  the  same  reaction 
takes  place  more  frequently  after  that,  until  experi- 
ence demonstrates  that  this  inexplicable  change  oc- 
curs whenever  sunlight  touches  the  mixture.  This 
already  constitutes  a  certain  understanding  of  the  pro- 
cess. Assume  furthermore  that  subsequent  experi- 
ence teaches  us  that  several  other  substances  have 
the  faculty  of  producing  the  same  reaction  in  connec- 
tion with  sunlight.  We  have  then  arranged  the  new 
reaction  in  line  with  a  number  of  phenomena  of  the 
same  class,  that  is  to  say  we  have  enlarged,  deepened, 
completed  our  understanding  of  it  still  more.  And 
if  we  finally  discover  that  a  special  part  of  the  sun- 
light unites  with  a  special  element  of  the  mixture  and 
thereby  produces  this  new  reaction,  we  have  general- 
ized this  experience,  or  experienced  this  generaliza- 
tion, in  a  "pure"  state,  in  other  words,  the  theory  of 
this  reaction  is  complete,  reason  has  solved  its  prob- 
lem, and  yet  it  has  done  nothing  more  than  it  did 
when  it  classified  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms 
in  families,  genera,  species,  etc.  To  find  the  species, 
the  genus,  the  sex,  etc.,  of  anything  means  to  under- 
stand it. 

Reason  proceeds  in  the  same  way  when  it  investi- 
gates the  causes  of  certain  transformations.  Causes 
are,  in  the  last  instance,  not  noticed  and  furnished  by 
means  of  sight,  hearing,  feeling,  not  by  means  of  the 
sense  perceptions.  They  are  rather  supplied  by  the 
faculty  of  thought.  It  is  true,  causes  are  not  the 
"pure"  products  of  the  faculty  of  thought,  but  are 
produced  by  it  in  connection  with  sense  perceptions 
and  their  material  objects.     This  raw  material  gives 


114 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  REASON 


115 


the  objective  existence  to  the  causes  produced  by  the 
mind.  Just  as  we  demand  that  a  truth  should  be  the 
truth  about  some  objective  phenomenon,  so  we  also 
demand  that  a  cause  should  be  real,  that  it  should  be 
the  cause  of  some  objective  efifect. 

The  understanding  of  any  concrete  cause  is  con- 
ditioned on  the  empirical  study  of  its  material,  while 
the  understanding  of  any  general  cause  is  based  on  the 
study  of  the  faculty  of  reason.  In  the  understanding 
of  concrete  causes,  the  material  of  study  varies,  but 
reason  maintains  a  constant  or  general  attitude.  The 
cause,  as  a  general  cause,  is  a  pure  conception,  and  it 
is  based  on  the  study  of  the  multiformity  of  concrete 
understandings  of  causes,  or  on  the  multiplied  study 
of  concrete  causes.  Hence  we  are  compelled  to  return 
to  the  concrete  material  of  the  general  concept,  to  the 
understanding  of  concrete  causes,  if  we  wish  to  analyze 
the  concept  of  a  general  cause. 

When  a  stone  falls  into  the  water  and  causes  rip- 
ples on  the  surface,  the  stone  is  no  more  the  cause  of 
the  ripples  than  the  liquid  condition  of  the  water.  If 
the  stone  falls  on  solid  substances,  it  causes  no  rip- 
ples. It  is  the  contact  of  the  falling  stone  with  liquid 
substances  wdiich  causes  the  ripples.  The  cause  is 
itself  an  effect,  and  the  effect,  the  ripples,  become  a 
cause  when  they  carry  a  piece  of  cork  ashore.  But 
in  either  case  the  cause  is  based  on  a  mutual  effect,  on 
the  interaction  of  the  waves  with  the  light  condition 
of  the  cork. 

A  stone  falling  into  the  water  is  not  a  cause  "in  it- 
self," not  a  cause  in  general.  We  arrive  at  such  a 
cause  only,  when  the  faculty  of  thought  uses  concrete 
causes  for  its  raw  material  and  constructs  out  of  thcr.i 


t 


the  "pure"  concept  of  the  cause  in  general.  A  stone 
falling  into  the  water  is  only  the  cause  of  the  subse- 
quent ripples,  and  it  becomes  a  general  cause  only 
through  the  experience  that  ripples  always  follow 
the  falling  of  a  stone  into  water. 

We  call  cause  that  which  generally  precedes  a 
certain  manifestation,  and  effect  that  which  gener- 
ally follows  it.  W^e  refer  to  the  stone  as  the  cause  of 
ripples  merely  because  we  know  that  it  always  causes 
them  when  falling  into  water.  But  since  ripples  some- 
times appear  without  being  preceded  by  the  fall  of  a 
stone,  ripples  have  another  general  cause.  So  far  as 
there  is  anything  general  in  ripples  which  precedes 
them,  it  is  the  elasticity  of  the  water  itself  which  is 
the  general  cause  of  ripples.  Circular  ripples,  which 
are  a  special  form  of  ripples,  are  generally  preceded 
by  the  falling  of  some  body  into  the  water,  and  this 
body  is  then  considered  as  their  cause.  The  cause 
is  always  different  in  proportion  and  to  the  extent  of 
the  phenomena  under  consideration. 

W^e  cannot  ascertain  causes  by  mere  introspective 
reasoning,  we  cannot  derive  them  out  of  our  head. 
Matter,  materials,  sense  perceptions  are  required  for 
this  purpose.  A  definite  cause  requires  a  definite  ma- 
terial, a  definite  amount  of  sense  perceptions.  In  the 
abstract  unity  of  nature,  the  variations  of  matter  are 
represented  by  the  variations  of  concrete  quantities. 
Every  quantity  is  given  in  time  before  and  after  a 
certain  other  quantity,  as  antecedent  and  subsequent.  The 
general  element  of  the  antecedent  is  called  cause,  the  gen- 
eral element  of  the  subsequent,  effect. 

When  the  wind  sways  a  forest,  the  yielding  charac- 
ter of  the  forest  is  as  much  instrumental  in  producing 


116 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 


this  effect  as  the  bending  power  of  the  wind.  The 
cause  of  a  thing  is  its  connection  with  other  things. 
The  fact  that  the  same  wind  leaves  rocks  and  walls 
standing  shows  that  the  cause  is  not  qualitatively  dif- 
ferent from  the  effect,  but  that  it  is  a  matter  of  aggre- 
gate effects.  If  nevertheless  science  or  knowledge 
determines  any  special  fact  to  be  the  cause  of  any 
change,  that  is  to  say  of  any  succession  of  phenomena, 
this  cause  is  no  longer  regarded  as  the  external  crea- 
tor, but  merely  as  the  general  mode,  the  immanent 
method  of  succession.  A  definite  cause  can  be  ascer- 
tained only  when  we  have  under  consideration  a 
definite  circle,  series,  or  number  of  changes,  the  cause 
of  which  is  to  be  determined.  And  within  a  definite 
circle  of  succeeding  phenomena,  that  which  generally 
precedes  is  their  cause. 

The  wind  which  sways  a  forest  differs  from  wind 
as  a  general  cause  only  in  that  the  latter  has  other  gen- 
eral effects,  inasmuch  as  it  howls  in  one  place,  stirs 
up  dust  in  another,  or  acts  in  many  different  ways. 
In  the  special  case  of  the  forest,  the  wind  is  a  cause 
only  in  so  far  as  it  precedes  the  swaying  of  the  trees. 
But  in  the  case  of  rocks  and  walls,  the  solidity  pre- 
cedes the  wind  and  is  therefore  the  general  cause  of 
their  resistance  to  the  swaying  power  of  the  wind.  In 
a  still  wider  circle  of  hurricane  phenomena,  a  gentle 
wind  may  be  regarded  as  a  cause  of  the  stability  of 
the  objects  last  mentioned. 

The  quantity  or  number  of  given  objects  varies 
the  name  of  their  cause.  If  a  certain  company  of  peo- 
ple return  from  a  walk  in  a  tired  condition,  this  change 
of  condition  is  just  as  much  due  to  the  physical  weak- 
ness of  the  people  as  to  the  walk.     In  other  words, 


THE   PRACTICE   OF   REASON 


iir 


\ 


a  manifestation  has  in  itself  no  cause  which  can  be 
separated  from  it.  Everything  which  was  connected  with 
a  phenomenon  has  contributed  toward  its  appearance.  In 
the  case  of  the  promenaders,  the  physical  constitution  of 
their  bodies  has  to  be  considered  as  well  as  the  physical 
constitution  and  length  of  the  road  and  duration  of  the 
walk.  If  reason  is  nevertheless  called  upon  to  determine 
the  special  cause  of  some  concrete  change,  for  instance,  of 
a  tired  feeling,  it  is  simply  a  question  of  determining 
which  one  of  the  various  factors  has  contributed  most 
to  that  feeling.  In  this  case  as  well  as  in  all  others, 
the  work  of  reason  consists  in  developing  the  general 
from  the  concrete,  that  is  to  say  in  this  case,  singling 
out  from  a  given  number  of  tired  sensations  that 
which  generally  precedes  the  tired  feeling.  If  most  of 
the  promenaders  or  all  of  them  are  found  to  be  tired, 
the  walk  will  be  considered  as  the  cause.  But  if  only 
a  few  are  tired,  the  weak  constitution  of  these  people 
will  be  considered  as  the  general  cause  of  their  tired 
condition. 

To  use  another  illustration:  If  the  discharge  of 
a  shot  frightens  some  birds,  this  effect  is  due  to  the 
combined  action  of  the  shot  and  the  timidity  of  the 
birds.  If  the  majority  of  the  birds  fly  away,  the  shot 
will  be  considered  as  the  cause.  But  if  the  minority 
fly  aw^ay,  their  timidity  will  be  regarded  as  the  cause. 
'  Effects  are  subsequences.  Since  all  things  in  na- 
ture follow  other  things  and  all  things  have  an  ante- 
cedent and  a  subsequent,  we  may  call  the  natural,  the 
real,  the  sense  perceptions  absolute  effects,  having  no 
cause  unless  we  find  one  with  our  faculty  of  thought 
by  systematizing  the  given  material.  Causes  are  men- 
tal generalizations  of  perceptible  changes.     The  sup- 


118 


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THE  PRACTICE  OF   REASON 


posed  relation  of  cause  and  effect  is  a  miracle,  a  crea- 
tion of  something  out  of  nothing.  For  this  reason  this 
relation  has  been  and  still  is  an  object  of  speculative 
reasoning.  The  speculative  cause  creates  its  effects. 
But  in  reality  the  effects  are  the  material  out  of  which 
the  brain,  or  science,  forms  its  causes.  The  cause  con- 
cept is  a  product  of  reason ;  not  of  *'pure"  reason,  but 
of  reason  married  to  the  world  of  sense  perceptions. 
If  Kant  maintains  that  the  statement:  "Every 
change  has  its  cause"  is  an  a  priori  truth  which  we 
cannot  experience  because  no  one  can  possibly  ex- 
perience all  changes,  although  every  one  has  the  irre- 
futable feeling  of  the  correctness  of  this  statement, 
we  know  now  that  this  statement  expresses  merely  the 
experienc-e  that  the  phenomenon  which  we  call  reason 
recognizes  the  uniform  element  in  all  multiformity. 
Or  in  other  words,  we  now  know  that  the  development  of 
the  general  element  out  of  the  concrete  facts  is  called 
reason,  thought,  or  mind.  The  secure  knowledge  that 
every  change  has  its  cause  is  nothing  else  but  the  con- 
viction that  we  are  thinking  human  beings.  Cogito, 
ergo  sum.  I  think,  therefore  I  am.  We  have  experi- 
enced the  nature  of  our  reason  instinctively  even  if 
we  have  not  analyzed  it  scientifically.  We  are  as  well 
aware  of  the  faculty  of  our  reason  to  abstract  a  cause 
out  of  every  given  change,  as  we  are  that  every  circle 
is  round,  that  a  is  equal  to  a.  We  know  that  the  gen- 
eral is  the  product  of  reason,  and  reason  produces 
this  general  thing  in  contact  with  every  given  object. 
And  since  all  objects  before  and  after  a  certain  other 
object  are  temporal  changes,  it  follows  that  all  changes 
vvhich  we  as  thinking  beings  experience  must  have 
a  general  antecedent,  a  cause. 


119 


Already  the  English  sceptic  Hume  felt  that  true 
causes  are  different  from  assumed  causes.  According 
to  him  the  concept  of  a  cause  contains  nothing  but  the 
experience  of  that  which  generally  precedes  a  certain 
phenomenon.  Kant  rightfully  remarks  on  the  other 
hand  that  the  conception  of  cause  and  effect  expresses 
a  far  more  intimate  relation  than  that  indicated  by  a 
loose  and  accidental  succession,  and  that  the  concept 
of  a  cause  rather  comprises  that  of  a  certain  effect  as 
a  necessity  and  strict  general  result.  Therefore  he 
claimed  that  there  must  be  something  a  priori  in  rea- 
son wdiich  cannot  be  experienced  and  which  extends 
beyond  experience. 

We  reply  to  the  materialists  who  deny  all  au- 
tonomy of  the  mind  and  hope  to  detect  causes  by  ex- 
perience alone  that  the  general  necessity  which  pre- 
supposes the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  represents 
an  impossible  experience.  And  w^e  reply  to  the  ideal- 
ists: Although  reason  explores  causes  which  cannot 
be  experienced,  this  research  cannot  take  place  a  pri- 
ori, but  only  a  posteriori,  only  on  the  basis  of  empiri- 
cally given  effects.  It  is  true  that  the  mind  alone  dis- 
covers the  imperceptible  and  abstract  generality,  but 
it  does  so  only  within  the  circle  of  certain  given  sense 
perceptions. 

(b)    Matter  and  Mind. 

The  understanding  of  the  general  dependence  of 
the  faculty  of  thought  on  material  sense  perceptions 
will  restore  to  objective  reality  that  right  which  has 
long  been  denied  to  it  by  ideas  and  opinions.  Nature 
with  its  varied  concrete  phenomena  v/hich  had  been 
crowded  out  of  human  considerations  by  philosophi- 


120 


TUE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


THE   PRACTICE   OF   REASON 


121 


cal  and  religious  imaginings,  and  which  has  been 
scientifically  re-established  again  on  special  fields  by 
the  development  of  natural  sciences,  gains  general 
•theoretical  recognition  by  the  understanding  of  the 
functions  of  the  brain.  Hitherto  natural  science  has 
chosen  for  its  object  only  special  matters,  special 
causes,  special  forces,  but  has  remained  ignorant  in 
general  questions  of  so-called  natural  philosophy  re- 
garding the  cause  of  all  things,  of  matter,  of  force  in 
general.  The  actual  existence  of  this  ignorance  is 
revealed  by  that  great  contradiction  between  idealism 
and  materialism  which  pervades  all  works  of  science 
like  a  red  thread. 

"May  I  succeed  in  this  letter  in  strengthening  the 
conviction  that  chemistry  as  an  independent  science 
represents  one  of  the  most  powerful  means  for  the 
higher  cultivation  of  the  mind,  that  its  study  is  useful 
not  alone  for  the  promotion  of  the  material  interests 
of  mankind,  but  because  it  permits  a  deeper  penetra- 
tion of  the  wonders  of  creation,  with  which  our  ex- 
istence, our  welfare,  and  our  development  are  inti- 
mately connected." 

In  these  words  Liebig  expresses  the  prevalent 
views  which  have  accustomed  themselves  to  look 
upon  material  and  spiritual  differences  as  absolute  op- 
posites.  But  the  untenability  of  such  a  distinction  is 
vaguely  felt  even  by  the  just  quoted  advocate  of  this 
view,  who  speaks  of  material  interests  and  of  a  mental 
penetration  which  is  the  condition  for  our  existence, 
welfare,  and  development.  But  what  else  does  the 
term  material  interests  mean  but  the  abstract  expres- 
sion of  our  existence,  welfare,  and  development?  Are 
not  these  the  concrete  content  of  our  material  interests  ? 


Does  he  not  say  explicitly  that  the  penetration  of  the 
wonders  of  creation  promotes  our  material  interests? 
And  on  the  other  hand,  does  not  the  promotion  of  our 
material  interests  require  a  penetration  on  our  part  of 
the  wonders  of  creation?  In  what  respect  are  our  ma- 
terial interests  different  from  our  mental  penetration 
of  things? 

The  superior,  spiritual,  ideal,  which  Liebig  in  con- 
formity with  the  view^s  of  the  wofW  of  naturalists  op- 
poses to  our  material  interests,  is  only  a  special  part 
of  those  interests.  Mental  penetration  and  material 
interests  differ  no  more  than  the  circle  differs  from  the 
square.  Circles  and  squares  are  contrasts,  but  at  the 
same  time  they  are  but  different  and  special  classes  of 
form  in  general. 

It  has  been  the  custom,  especially  since  the  advent 
of  Christian  times,  to  speak  contemptuously  of  ma- 
terial, perceptible,  fleshly  things  which  are  destroyed 
by  rust  and  moths.  And  nowadays  people  con- 
tinue on  this  conservative  track,  although  their  antip- 
athy against  perceptible  reality  has  long  disappeared 
from  their  minds  and  actions.  The  Christian  separa- 
tion of  mind  and  body  has  been  practically  abandoned 
in  the  age  of  natural  science.  But  the  theoretical  so- 
lution of  the  contradiction,  the  demonstration  that 
the  spiritual  is  material  and  the  material  at  the  same 
time  spiritual,  by  which  the  material  interests  would 
be  freed  from  the  stigma  of  inferiority,  has  not  yet 
been  forthcoming. 

Modern  science  is  natural  science.  Science  is 
deemed  worthy  of  its  name  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  natu- 
ral science.  In  other  words,  only  that  thought  is 
scientific  which  consciously  has  real,  perceptible,  nat- 


! 


122 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN  WORK 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  REASON 


123 


iiral  things  for  its  object.    For  this  reason  representa- 
tives and  friends  of  science  can  not  be  enemies  of  na- 
ture or  of  matter.    Indeed  they  are  not.    But  the  very 
existence  of  science  shows  that  this  nature,  this  world 
of  sense  perceptions,  this  matter  or  substance,  does 
alone  and  by  itself  not  satisfy  us.    Science,  or  thought, 
which  has  material  practice  or  being  for  its  object, 
does  not  strive  to  reproduce  nature  in  its  integrity, 
in  its  entire  perceptible  substance,  for  these  are  al- 
ready present.    If  science  were  to  aim  at  nothing  new, 
it  would  be  superfluous.     It  is  entitled  to  special  recog- 
nition only  to  the  extent  that  it  carries  a  new  element 
into  matter.    Science  is  not  so  much  concerned  in  the 
material  of  its  study  as  in  understanding.     Of  course 
it  is  the  understanding  of  this  material  which  is  de- 
sired, the  understanding  of  its  general  character,  of 
the  fixed  pole  in  the  succession  of  phenomena.    That 
which  religion  supernaturally  separates  from  the  ma- 
terial, which  science  opposes  to  the  material  as  some^ 
thing  higher,  diviner,  more  spiritual,  is  in  reality  noth- 
ing but  the  faculty  of  rising  above  multiformity,  of  pro- 
ceeding from  the  concrete  to  the  general. 

The  nobler  spiritual  interests  are  not  absolutely 
different  from  the  material  interests,  they  are  not 
qualitatively  different.  The  positive  side  of  modern 
idealism  does  not  consist  in  belittling  eating  and  drink- 
ing, the  pleasure  in  earthly  possessions  and  in  inter- 
course with  the  other  sex,  but  rather  in  pleading  for 
the  recognition  of  other  material  enjoyments  besides 
these,  as  for  instance  those  of  the  eye,  the  ear,  of  art 
and  science,  in  short  of  the  whole  man.  You  shall  not 
indulge  in  the  material  revelries  of  passion,  that  is 
to  say  you  shall  not  direct  your  thought  one-sidedly 


to  any  concrete  lust,  but  rather  consider  your  entire 
development,  take  into  account  the  total  general  ex- 
tension of  your  existence.  The  bare  materialist  prin- 
ciple is  inadequate  in  that  it  does  not  appreciate  the 
difference  between  the  concrete  and  the  general,  be- 
cause it  makes  the  individual  synonymous  with  the 
general.  It  refuses  to  recognize  the  quantitative  su- 
periority of  the  mind  over  the  world  of  sense  percep- 
tions. Idealism,  on  the  other  hand,  forgets  the  quali- 
tative unity  in  the  quantitative  difference.  It  is  trans- 
cendental and  makes  an  absolute  difference  out  of  the 
relative  one.  The  contradiction  between  these  two 
camps  is  due  to  the  misunderstood  relation  of  our 
reason  to  its  given  object  or  material.  The  idealist 
regards  reason  alone  as  the  source  of  all  understand- 
ing, while  the  materialist  looks  upon  the  world  of 
sense  perceptions  in  the  same  way.  Nothing  is  re- 
quired for  a  solution  of  this  contradiction  but  the  com- 
prehension of  the  relative  interdependence  of  these  two 
sources  of  understanding.  Idealism  sees  only  the  dif- 
ference, materialism  sees  only  the  uniformity  of  matter 
and  mind,  content  and  form,  force  and  substance, 
sense  perception  and  moral  interpretation.  But  all 
these  distinctions  belong  to  the  one  common  genus  which 
constitutes  the  distinction  between  the  special  and  the 
general. 

Consistent  materialists  act  like  purely  practical  men 
without  any  science.  But,  since  knowing  and  thinking  are 
real  attributes  of  man  regardless  of  his  party  affiliation, 
purely  practical  men  do  not  exist  in  reality.  Even 
the  merest  attempt  at  practical  experiment  on  the 
basis  of  experienced  facts  differs  only  in  degree  from 
scientific  practice   based  on  theoretical  principles.     On 


P- 


124 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BR.UN  WORK 


the  Other  hand,  consistent  idealists  are  just  as  impos- 
sible as  purely  practical   men.     They  would   like   to 
have  the  general  without  the  special,  the  spirit  with- 
out matter,  force  without  substance,  science  without 
experience  or  material,  the  absolute  without  the  rela- 
tive.    How  can  thinkers  who  search  for  truth,  being, 
relative  causes,  such  as  naturalists,  be  idealists?    They 
are  so  only  outside  of  their  specialties,  never  inside  of 
them.    The  modern  mind,  the  mind  of  natural  science, 
is  immaterial  only  so  far  as  it  embraces  all  matters. 
But  men  like  the  astronomer  Madler  find  so  little  of 
the  ridiculous  in  the  current  expectation  of  the  ma- 
terially increased  spiritual  power  after  our  ''emanci- 
pation from  the  bonds  of  matter,"  that  he  has  nothing 
better  to  substitute  for  it  and  flatters  himself  with  hav- 
ing defined  the  "bonds  of  matter"  as  material  attrac- 
tion.   Truly,  so  long  as  mind  is  still  conceived  in  tlie 
form  of  a  religious  ghost,   the   expectation  of  an   in- 
creased  mental    power   after   the   emancipation   from 
the  bonds  of  matter  is  not  so  much  an  object  for  ridi- 
cule as  for  compassion.    But  if  we  regard  mind  as  the 
expression  of  modern  science,  we  oflfer  the  better  sci- 
entific explanation  for  the  traditional  faith.    By  bonds 
of  matter  we  do  not  mean,  in  that  case,  the  bond  of 
gravitation,   but   the   multiplicity   of   sense   perceptions. 
And  matter  holds  the  mind  in  bondage  only  so  long  as 
the  faculty  of  thought  has  not  overcome  the  multi- 
plicity of  things.    The  emancipation  of  the  mind  from 
the  bonds  of  matter  consists  in  developing  the  general 
element  out  of  the  concrete  multiplicity. 

(c)    Force  and  Matter. 

The  reader  who  has  closely  followed  our  main  idea. 


THE   PRACTICE   OF   REASON 


125 


which  will  be  further  illustrated,  will  anticipate  that 
the  question  of  matter  and  force  finds  its  solution  in 
the  understanding  of  the  relation  between  the  general 
and  the  special.  What  i?  ihe  relation  of  the  concrete 
to  the  abstract  ?  This  is  the  common  problem  of  those 
who  see  the  active  Impulse  of  the  world  either  In  the 
spiritual  force  or  in  the  material  substance,  who  think 
to  find  the  nature  of  things,  the  non  plus  ultra  of  science, 
in  either  of  these  facts. 

Liebig,  who  is  especially  fond  of  straying  from  his 
inductive  science  into  the  field  of  speculative  thought, 
says  in  an  idealist  sense:  "Force  cannot  be  seen,  we 
cannot  grasp  it  with  our  hands;  in  order  to  under- 
stand its  nature  and  peculiarities,  we  must  investigate 
its  efifects."  And  if  a  materialist  replies  to  him :  ''Mat- 
ter is  force,  force  Is  matter,  no  matter  without  force, 
no  force  without  matter,"  It  Is  plain  that  either  has 
determined  this  relation  only  negatively.  In  certain 
show^s,  the  clown  is  asked  by  the  manager:  "Clown, 
where  have  you  been?"  "With  the  others."  answers 
the  clown.     "And  where  were  the  others?" — "With 


me." 

In  this  case  we  have  two  answers  with  the  same 
content,  in  the  other  we  have  two  camps  w^hich  quar- 
rel with  different  words  about  an  indisputable  fact. 
And  this  dispute  is  so  much  more  ridiculous  because 
it  Is  taken  so  seriously.  If  the  idealist  makes  a  distinc- 
tion between  matter  and  force,  he  does  not  mean  -to 
deny  that  the  real  phenomenon  of  force  is  inseparably 
linked  with  matter.  And  if  the  materialist  claims  that 
there  is  no  matter  without  force  and  no  force  without 
matter,  he  does  not  mean  to  deny  that  matter  and 
force  are  different,  as  his  opponent  claims. 


) 


12G 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


The  dispute  exists  for  a  good  reason  and  has  its 
object,  but  this  object  is  not  revealed  in  the  dispute. 
It  is  instinctively  kept  under  cover  by  both  parties, 
so  that  they  may  not  be  in  a  position  where  they 
would  have  to  acknowledge  their  own  ignorance.  Each 
wants  to  prove  to  the  other  that  the  other's  explana- 
tions are  inadequate,  and  both  demonstrate  this  suf- 
ficiently. Biichner  admits  in  the  closing  statements 
of  his  ''Matter  and  Force"  that  the  empirical  material 
is  insufficient  to  permit  of  definite  answers  to  trans- 
cendental questions,  and  that  therefore  no  positive 
answer  can  be  given  to  them.  And  he  furthermore 
says  that  the  empirical  material  "is  fully  sufficient  to 
answer  them  negatively  and  to  do  away  with  hypothesis." 
This  is  saying  in  so  many  words  that  the  science  of  the 
materialist  is  adequate  for  the  proof  that  his  opponent 
knows  nothing. 

The  spiritualist  or  idealist  believes  in  a  spiritual, 
which  means  in  a  ghostlike  and  inexplicable,  nature  of 
force.  The  materialist  thinkers,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  skeptical.  A  scientific  proof  of  faith  or  of  skepti- 
cism does  not  exist.  The  materialist  has  only  this  ad- 
vantage over  his  idealist  opponent,  that  he  looks  for 
the  transcendental,  the  nature,  the  cause,  the  force,  not 
back  of  the  phenomenon,  not  outside  of  matter.  But 
he  remains  behind  the  idealist  when  he  ignores  the  differ- 
ence between  matter  and  force.  The  materialist  dwells 
on  the  actual  inseparability  of  matter  and  force  and 
does  not  admit  any  other  reason  for  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  than  "an  external  reason  derl\ed 
from  the  demand  of  our  mind  for  systematization." 
Biichner  says  in  "Nature  and  Mind,"  page  06:  "Force 
and  matter,  separated  from  one  another,  are  for  me 


THE   PRACTICE  OF  REASON 


127 


nothing  but  thoughts,  fantasies,  ideas  without  any 
substance,  hypotheses  which  do  not  exist  for  any 
healthy  study  of  nature,  because  all  phenomena  of  na- 
ture are  rendered  obscure  and  unintelligible  by  such  a 
separation."  But  if  Biichner  deals  with  any  special 
department  of  natural  science  in  a  productive  way,  in- 
stead of  handling  phrases  of  natural  philosophy,  his 
own  practice  will  show  him  that  the  separation  of 
forces  from  matter  is  not  an  "external,"  but  an  inter- 
nal, an  imminent  necessity,  by  which  alone  we  are  en- 
abled to  elucidate  and  understand  the  phenomena  of 
nature.  Although  the  author  of  "Force  and  Matter" 
chose  for  his  motto:  "Now,  what  I  want  is — facts,"  we  as- 
sure the  reader  that  this  device  is  more  a  thoughtless 
word  than  a  serious  opinion.  Materialism  is  not  so 
coarse-grained  that  it  w^ants  purely  facts.  Those  facts 
which  Biichner  is  looking  for  are  by  themselves  not 
specifics  for  his  desires.  The  idealist  likewise  wants 
such  facts.  No  student  of  nature  wants  mere  hy- 
potheses. What  all  cultivators  of  the  field  of  science 
want  is  not  so  much  facts  as  explanations  or  an  un- 
derstanding of  facts.  Even  the  materialist  w^ll  not 
deny  that  science,  the  "natural  philosophy"  of  Biich- 
ner  not  excepted,  is  more  concerned  with  mental 
forces  than  with  bodily  matter,  that  it  cares  more  for 
force  than  for  matter.  The  separation  of  force  and 
matter  is  derived  from  "the  demand  of  our  mind  for 
systematization."  Very  true!  But  so  does  all  science 
emanate  from  the  demand  of  our  reason  for  systemati- 
zation. 

The  contradistinction  between  force  and  matter  is 
as  old  as  that  between  idealism  and  materialism.  The 
first   conciliation    between    the   two    was   attempted   by 


128 


TIIi:  NATURI-:  OF   IIUMAX  BRAIN   WORK 


imagination  which,  through  the  belief  in  spirits,  sug- 
gested a  secret  nature  as  the  cause  of  all  natural  phe- 
nomena. Science  has  of  late  expelled  many  of  these 
special  spirits  by  replacing  the  fantastic  demons  with 
scientific,  or  general,  explanations.  And  after  we 
have  succeeded  in  explaining  the  demon  of  ''pure" 
reason,  it  is  not  difficult  to  expel  the  special  spirit  of 
force  by  the  general  explanation  of  its  nature  and 
thus  to  reconcile  scientifically  the  contradiction  between 
spiritualism  and  materialism. 

In  the  universe  which  constitutes  the  object  of 
science  and  of  the  faculty  of  reason,  both  force  and 
matter  are  unseparated.  In  the  world  of  sense  per- 
ceptions force  is  matter  and  matter  is  force.  "Force 
cannot  be  seen."  Oh,  yes!  Seeing  itself  is  pure  force. 
Seeing  is  as  much  an  effect  of  its  object  as  an  effect  of 
the  eye,  and  this  double  effect  and  other  effects  are 
forces.  We  do  not  see  the  things  themselves,  but 
their  effects  on  our  eyes.  We  see  their  forces.  And 
force  cannot  alone  be  seen,  it  can  also  be  heard, 
smelled,  tasted,  felt.  Who  will  deny  that  he  can  feel 
the  force  of  heat,  of  cold,  of  gravitation  ?  We  have  al- 
ready quoted  the  words  of  Professor  Koppe  to  the  ef- 
fect that  we  "cannot  perceive  heat  itself,  we  merely 
conclude  from  its  effects  that  this  force  exists  in 
nature."  This  is  saying  in  other  words  that  we  do  not 
see,  hear,  or  feel  the  things  themselves,  but  their 
effects  or  forces. 

It  is  just  as  true  to  say  that  we  feel  matter  and  not 
its  force  as  it  is  to  say  that  we  feel  force  and  not  mat- 
ter. Indeed,  both  are  inseparable  from  the  object,  as 
we  have  already  remarked.  But  by  means  of  the 
faculty  of  thought  we  separate  from  the  simultane- 


THE  PR.\CTICE  OF   REASON 


129 


ously  and  successively  occurring  phenomena  the  gen- 
eral and  the  concrete.  For  instance,  w^e  abstract  the 
general  concept  of  sight  from  the  various  phenomena 
of  our  sight  and  distinguish  it  by  the  name  of  power 
of  vision  from  the  concrete  objects,  or  substances, 
of  our  eyes.  From  a  multitude  of  sense  perceptions 
we  develop  by  means  of  reason  the  general  element. 
The  general  element  of  different  water  phenomena, 
for  instance,  is  the  water  powder  distinguished  from  the 
substance  of  the  water.  If  levers  of  different  materials 
but  of  the  same  length  have  the  same  power,  it  is  plain 
that  in  this  case  force  is  different  from  matter  only  in 
so  far  as  it  represents  the  general  element  of  various 
substances.  A  horse  does  not  pull  without  force,  and 
this  force  does  not  pull  without  the  horse.  Indeed,  in 
practice  the  horse  is  force  and  force  is  the  horse.  But 
nevertheless  we  may  distinguish  the  powder  of  pulling 
from  other  qualities  of  the  horse,  or  we  may  refer  to 
the  common  element  in  different  services  of  horses  as 
general  horse  power,  without  thereby  starting  from 
any  other  hypothesis  than  we  do  in  distinguishing  the 
sun  from  the  earth.  For  in  reality  the  sun  does  not  exist 
without  the  earth,  nor  the  earth  without  the  sun. 

The  world  of  sense  perceptions  is  made  known  to 
us  only  by  our  consciousness,  but  consciousness  is 
conditioned  on  the  world  of  sense  perceptions.  Nature 
is  infinitely  united  or  infinitely  separated,  accordinc; 
to  whether  we  regard  it  from  the  standpoint  of  con- 
sciousness as  an  unconditional  unit  or  from  the  stand- 
point of  sense  perceptions  as  an  unconditional  multi- 
plicity. There  is  truth  in  both  unity  and  multiplicity, 
but  it  is  truth  only  relatively  speaking,  under  certain 
conditions.     It  matters  a  great  deal  whether  we  look 


* 

\ 


130 


THE  NATURE  OF  HUMAN  BRAIN   WORK 


THE  PRACTICE   OF  REASON 


131 


about  with  the  eves  of  the  body  or  with  the  eyes  of  the 
mind     For  the  eyes  of  the  mind,  matter  is  force.    For 
the  eves  of  the  body,  force  is  matter.     The  abstract 
matter  is  force,  the  concrete  force  is  matter.     Matter 
is  represented  by  the  objects  of  the  hand,  of  practice, 
while  force  is  an  object  of  understanding,  of  science. 
Science   is   not   Hmited   to   the   so-called   scientific 
world.    It  reaches  beyond  all  classes,  it  belongs  to  the 
full  depth  and  width  of  life.    Science  belongs  to  think- 
ing humanity  in  its  entirety.     And  so  it  is  with  the 
separation  of  matter  and  force.    Only  a  stultified  fan- 
aticism can  ignore  the  practical  distinction.  The  miser 
who  accumulates  money  without  adding  any  wealth 
to  his  life  process  forgets  that  the  valuable  element  of 
money  resides  in  its  force,  which  is  different  from  its 
substance.    He  forgets  that  not  mere  wealth  as  such, 
not   the   paltry  gold   substance,   lends    a   reasonableness 
to  the  quest  for  its  possession,  but  its  spiritual  content, 
its  inherent  exchange  value,  which  buys  the  necessities 
of  life.     Every  scientific  practice,  which  means  every 
action  carried  on  with  a  predetermined  success  and 
with  understood  substances,  proves  that  the  separa- 
tion of  matter  and  force,  though  only  performed  in 
thought  and  existing  in  thought,  is  nevertheless  not 
an  empty  phrase,  not  a  mere  hypothesis,  but  a  very 
fertile  idea.     A  farmer  manuring  his  field  is  handling* 
"pure"  manuring  force,  in  so  far  as  it  is  immaterial 
for  the  abstract  conception  whether  he  is  handling  cow 
dung,  bone  dust,  or  guano.    And  in  weighing  bundles 
of  merchandise,  it  is  not  the  iron,  copper,  stone,  etc., 
which  is  handled  by  the  pound,  but  their  gravity. 

True,  there  is  no  force  without  matter,  no  matter 
without  force.     Forceless  matter  and  matterlcss  force 


are  nonentities.  If  idealist  naturalists  believe  in  an 
immaterial  existence  of  forces  which,  so  to  say,  carry 
on  their  goblin-pranks  in  matter,  forces  which  we  can- 
not see,  cannot  perceive  by  the  senses  and  yet  are 
asked  to  believe  in,  then  we  say  that  such  men  are  to 
that  extent  that  naturists,  but  mere  speculators,  in  other 
words  spiritualists.  And  the  word  of  the  materialists 
who  refer  to  the  intellectual  separation  of  matter  and 
force  as  a  mere  hypothesis,  is  quite  as  brainless. 

In  order  that  this  separation  may  be  appreciated 
according  to  its  merits,  in  order  that  our  conscious- 
ness may  neither  etherealize  force  in  a  spiritualist  sense 
nor  deny  it  in  a  materialist  sense,  and  in  order  to  com- 
prehend it  scientifically,  we  have  only  to  understand 
the  faculty  of  thought  in  general  or  "in  itself,"  that  is 
to  say  its  abstract  form.    The  intellect  can  not  operate 
without  some  perceptible  material.     In  order  to  dis- 
tinguish between  matter  and  force,  these  things  must 
exist  and  be   experienced   by  sense  perception.     By 
means  of  this  experience  we  refer  to  matter  as  the  ex- 
pression of  force  and  to  force  as  the  expression  of 
matter.     The  perceptible  object  which  is  to  be  studied 
is  therefore  matter  and  force  in  one,  and  since  all  ob- 
jects  are   in   their   tangible   reality   such   matter   and 
force  things,  the  distinction  made  by  the  mind  consists 
in  the  general  method  of  brain  work,  in  the  derivation 
of  the  general  unity,  from  the  special  multiplicity  in 
any  one  and  in  all  given  objects.    The  distinction  be- 
tween matter  and  force  is  summarized  in  the  universal 
distinction  between  the  concrete  and  the  abstract.    To 
deny  the  value  of  this  distinction  is  equivalent  to  de- 
nying the  value  of  any  and  all  distinction,  equivalent 
to  ignoring  the  function  of  the  intellect  altogether. 


I 


132 


THE   NATURE   OF   HUMAN    IJRAIN    WORK 


If  we  refer  to  phenomena  of  sense  perception  as 
forces  of  matter  in  general,  then  this  generalized  mat- 
ter is  nothing  but  an  abstract  conception.  But  if  we 
mean  by  the  term  sense  perception  the  various  con- 
crete substances,  then  the  general  element  which  em- 
braces the  differences  of  things  and  pervades  and  con- 
trols them  is  force  producing  concrete  effects.  And 
whether  we  say  matter  or  force,  the  mental  which 
science  is  studying,  not  with  its  hands,  but  with  its 
brain,  the  so-called  essence,  nature,  cause,  ideal,  su- 
perior or  spiritual,  is  the  generality  comprising  the 
special  things. 


V 


"practical  reason''  or  morality 

(a)    The  Wise  and  Reasonable. 

The  understanding  of  the  method  of  science,  the 
understanding  of  the  mind,  is  destined  to  solve  all  the 
problems  of  religion  and  philosophy,  to  explain  thor- 
oughly all  the  great  and  small  riddles,  and  thus  fully 
to  restore  research  to  its  mission  of  empirically  study- 
ing details.  If  we  are  aware  that  it  is  a  law  of  reason 
to  require  some  perceptible  material,  some  cause,  for 
its  operation,  then  the  question  regarding  the  first  or 
general  cause  becomes  superfluous.  Human  under- 
standing is  then  seen  to  be  first  and  last  cause  of  all 
concrete  causes.  If  we  understand  that  it  is  a  law  of 
reason  to  require  for  its  operation  some  given  object, 
some  beginning  at  which  to  start,  then  the  question 
of  the  first  beginning  must  necessarily  become  inane. 
If  we  understand  that  reason  derives  abstract  units 
out  of  concrete  multiplicities,  that  it  constructs  truth 
out  of  phenomena,  substance  out  of  attributes,  that 
it  perceives  all  things  as  parts  of  a  whole,  as  indi- 
viduals of  some  genus,  as  qualities  of  some  object, 
then  the  question  regarding  a  ''thing  itself,"  a  some- 
thing which  in  reality  is  back  of  all  things,  must 
needs  become  irrelevaiit.  j  In  brief,  the  understanding 
of  the  interdependence  of  reason  reveals  the  unreason- 
ableness of  the   demand   for  independent   reason. 

133 


134 


THE    NATURE   OF   HUMAN   BRAIN    WORK 


Now,  although  the  main  object  of  metaphysics, 
the  cause  of  all  causes,  the  beginning  of  all  beginnings, 
the  nature  of  things,  causes  little  inconvenience  to 
modern  science,  and  even  though  the  needs  of  the 
present  have  overcome  the  leaning  for  speculation, 
this  practical  downfall  of  speculation  does  not  suffice 
for  the  solution  of  its  problems.  So  long  as  the  theo- 
retical law  is  not  understood,  according  to  which 
reason  requires  some  concrete  object  for  its  operation, 
there  is  no  hope  of  abandoning  objectless  thought, 
this  malpractice  of  speculative  philosophy,  which  pre- 
tends to  generate  knowledge  without  intercourse  with 
objective  reality.  Our  naturalists  demonstrate  this 
very  clearly  as  soon  as  they  turn  from  their  tangible 
specialties  to  abstract  things.  The  dispute  over  ques- 
tions of  life's  wisdom,  of  morality,  or  the  quarrel 
over  the  wise,  good,  right,  or  bad,  reveals  that  here  is 
the  boundary  of  scientific  agreement.  The  scientific 
explorers  of  the  exact  sciences  abandon  every  day 
their  inductive  method  when  dealing  with  social 
problems,  and  stray  off  into  the  regions  of  speculative 
philosophy.  Just  as  in  physics  they  believe  in  imper- 
ceptible physical  truths,  in  "things  themselves,"  so  in 
social  matters  they  believe  in  the  reasonable,  wise, 
right,  or  bad,  in  the  sense  of  ''things  themselves,"  of 
absolute  phases  of  life,  of  unconditional  conditions' 
It  is  here  where  the  outcome  of  our  studies,  of  the 
critique  of  pure  reason,  must  be  applied. 

In  recognizing  that  consciousness,  the  nature  of 
understanding,  the  mental  activity  in  its  general  form, 
consists  in  developing  general  concepts  out  of  con- 
crete objects,  we  circumscribe  this  insight  by  stating 
that  reason  develops  its  understanding  out  of  contra- 


I 


I 


"^PRACTICAL  reason''  OR  MOR.\LITY 


135 


dictions.  It  is  the  nature  of  the  mind  to  perceive,  in 
given  phenomena  of  different  dimensions  and  different 
duration,  the  nature  of  things  by  their  semblance,  and 
their  semblance  by  their  nature;  to  distinguish  in 
wants  of  various  degrees  the  most  essential  and  neces- 
sary from  the  less  pressing;  to  measure  within  a  cer- 
tain circle  of  magnitudes  the  large  by  the  small  and 
the  small  by  the  large,  or  in  other  words  to  compare 
the  contrasts  of  the  world  with  one  another,  to  har- 
monize them  by  explanation.  Common  parlance  in- 
stinctively calls  understanding  judging;  judging  re- 
quires a  certain  standard.  Just  as  surely  as  we  cannot 
perceive  any  objects  which  are  "in  themselves"  great 
or  small,  hard  or  soft,  clear  or  dark,  just  as  surely 
as  these  terms  denote  certain  relations  and  require  a 
certain  standard  by  which  their  relations  can  be  deter- 
mined, even  so  does  reason  require  a  certain  standard 
for  the  determination  of  that  which  is  reasonable. 

The  fact  that  we  consider  certain  actions,  institu- 
tions, conceptions,  maxims  of  other  periods,  nations, 
or  persons  unreasonable  is  simply  due  to  the  applica- 
tion of  a  different  standard,  because  we  ignore  the  prem- 
ises, the  conditions,  which  cause  another's  reason  to 
differ  from  our  own.  Men  who  differ  in  their  mental 
estimates,  in  their  understanding  of  things,  may  be 
likened  to  the  thermometers  of  Reaumur  and  Celsius, 
one  of  which  designates  the  boiling  point  by  80  and 
the  other  by  100.  A  different  standard  is  the  cause 
of  this  different  result.  On  the  so-called  moral  field 
there  is  no  scientific  agreement,  such  as  we  enjoy  in 
some  physical  matters,  because  we  lack  the  uniform 
standard  which  natural  science  has  long  since  found. 
It  is  still  attempted  to  perceive  the  reasonable,  good, 


i , 


136 


THE   NATURE   OF   HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


right,  etc.,  without  empirical  data,  by  speculative 
reasoning  without  experience.  Speculation  seeks 
the  cause  of  all  causes,  the  immeasurable  cause; 
truth  ''itself,"  the  unconditional  and  standardless 
truth;  the  unlimited  good,  the  unboundedly  reason- 
able, etc.  The  absence  of  a  standard  is  the  essence  of 
speculation,  and  its  practice  is  characterized  by  unlim- 
ited inconsistency  and  disagreement.  If  there  are  fol- 
lowers of  certain  positive  religions  who  agree  in  the 
matter  of  morals,  they  owe  this  to  the  positive  stand- 
ard which  certain  dogmas,  doctrines  and  command- 
ments have  given  them.  But  if  any  one  tries  to  per- 
ceive things  by  "pure"  reason,  the  dependence  of  this 
reason  on  some  standard  will  be  demonstrated  by  its 
"impure,"  that  is  to  say  individual,  perceptions. 

Sense  perception  is  the  standard  of  truth,  or  of 
science  in  general.  The  phenomena  of  the  outside 
world  are  the  standard  of  physical  truths,  and  man 
with  his  manv  wants  is  the  standard  of  moral  truth. 
The  actions  of  man  are  determined  by  his  wants. 
Thirst  teaches  him  to  drink,  need  to  pray.  Wants  are 
regulated  in  the  South  by  southern  conditions,  in  the 
North  by  northern  conditions.  Wants  rule  time  and 
space,  nations  and  individuals.  They  induce  the  sav- 
age to  hunt  and  the  gourmand  to  indulge.  Human 
wants  give  to  reason  a  standard  for  judging  what  is 
good,  right,  bad,  reasonable,  etc.  Whatever  satisfies 
our  need  is  good,  the  opposite  is  bad.  The  physical 
feeling  of  man  is  the  object  of  moral  standards,  the 
object  of  "practical  reason."  The  contradictory  va- 
riety of  human  needs  is  the  basis  for  the  contradictory 
variety  of  moral  standards.  Because  a  member  of  a 
feudal   guild    prospered   in    a    restricted    competition, 


^ 


PRACTICAL  REASON      OR  MORALITY 


13: 


and  a  modern  knight  of  industry  in  free  competition, 
because  their  interests  differ,  therefore  their  views 
differ,  and  the  one  justly  considers  an  institution  as 
unreasonable  which  the  other  regards  as  reasonable. 
If  the  intellect  of  some  person  attempts  to  define  by 
mere  introspection  the  standard  of  reasonableness  as 
a  general  thing,  this  person  makes  himself  or  herself 
the  standard  of  humanity.  If  reason  is  credited  with 
the  faculty  of  finding  within  itself  the  source  of  moral 
truthj  it  commits  the  speculative  mistake  of  at- 
tempting to  produce  understanding  without  percepti- 
ble objects.  The  same  mistake  is  to  blame  for  the 
idea  that  man  is  subordinate  to  the  authority  of  rea- 
son, for  the  demand  that  man  submit  to  the  dictates  of 
reason.  This  idea  transforms  man  into  an  attribute 
of  reason,  while  in  reality  reason  is  an  attribute  of 
man. 

The  question  whether  man  depends  on  reason  or 
reason  on  man  is  similar  to  the  one  whether  the  citi- 
zen exists  for  the  state  or  the  state  for  the  citizen. 
In  the  last  and  highest  instance,  the  citizen  is  the  pri- 
mary fact  and  the  state  is  modified  according  to  the 
requirements  of  the  citizen.  But  whenever  the  domi- 
nant interests  of  the  citizenship  have  acquired  the 
authority  in  the  state,  then  the  citizen  is  indeed  de- 
pendent on  the  state.  This  is  saying  in  so  many 
words  that  man  is  guided  in  minor  matters  by  more, 
important  ones.  He  sacrifices  the  less  important, 
minor,  particular  things  to  the  great,  essential,  gen- 
eral things.  He  subordinates  his  desire  for  more  indi- 
vidual indulcrence  to  his  fundamental  social  needs.  It  is 
not  pure  reason,  but  the  reason  of  a  weak  body  or  of 
a  limited  purse  which  teaches  man  to  renounce  the 


138 


THE   NATURE  OF   HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


pleasures  of  dissipation  for  the  benefit  of  the  general 
welfare.  The  wants  of  the  senses  are  the  material 
out  of  which  reason  fashions  moral  truths.  To  single 
out  the  essential  need  among  different  physical  needs 
of  various  degrees  of  intensity  or  extension,  to  sepa- 
rate the  true  from  the  individual,  to  develop  general 
concepts,  that  is  the  mission  of  reason.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  apparently  and  the  truly  reason- 
able reduces  itself  to  the  difference  between  the  special 
and  the  general. 

We  recall  that  reason  requires  sense  perceptions 
for  its  existence  and  operation,  that  it  needs  some  ob- 
ject which  it  can  perceive.  Existence  is  the  condition 
or  premise  of  all  understanding.  Just  as  the  under- 
standing of  true  existence  is  the  function  of  natural 
science,  so  the  understanding  of  reasonable  existence 
is  the  function  of  wisdom.  Reason  in  general  has  the 
mission  of  understanding  things  as  they  are.  As 
physical  science  it  has  to  understand  what  is  true,  as 
wisdom,  what  is  reasonable.  And  just  as  true  may  be 
translated  by  general,  so  reasonable  may  be  translated 
by  generally  appropriate  to  need.  We  saw  a  while 
ago  that  a  sense  perception  is  not  true  "in  itself,"  but 
only  relatively  true,  that  it  is  called  true  or  general 
only  in  relation  to  other  perceptions  of  lesser  impor- 
tance. In  the  same  way,  no  human  action  can  be  rea' 
sonable  or  appropriate  "in  itself,"  it  can  be  reason- 
able only  in  comparison  with  some  other  action  which 
attempts  to  accomplish  the  same  purpose  in  a  less 
practicable,  that  is  an  impracticable,  form.  Just  as 
the  true,  the  general,  is  conditioned  on  the  relation  to 
some  other  object,  on  a  definite  quantity  of  phenom- 
ena, on  definite  limits,  so  the  reasonable  or  practicable 


"practical  reason'"  OR  MORALITY 


139 


is  based  on  definite  conditions  which  make  it  reason- 
able or  unreasonable.  The  end  in  view  is  the  meas- 
ure of  the  practicable.  The  practicable  can  be  deter- 
mined only  by  some  definite  object  that  is  wanted. 
Once  this  object  is  known,  then  that  action  is  called 
reasonable  which  accomplishes  it  in  the  fullest,  most 
general  way,  and  all  other  actions  appear  unreason- 
able compared  to  it. 

In  view  of  the  law  which  we  evolved  by  our  analy- 
sis of  pure  reason  and  which  showed  that  all  under- 
standing, all  thought,  is  based  on  some  perceptible 
object,  on  some  quantity  of  sense  perceptions,  it  is 
evident  that  everything  distinguished  by  our  faculty 
of  distinction  is  a  certain  quantity  and  that,  therefore, 
all  distinctions  are  only  quantitative,  not  absolute, 
only  graduated,  not  irreconcilable.  Even  the  differ- 
ence between  the  reasonable  and  the  unreasonable,  or 
in  other  words  between  that  which  is  momentarily 
or  individually  reasonable  and  that  which  is  generally 
reasonable,  is  merely  a  quantitative  distinction,  like 
all  others,  so  that  the  unreasonable  may  be  condi- 
tionally reasonable,  and  nothing  is  unreasonable  but 
that  which  is  supposed  to  be  unconditionally  reason- 
able. 

If  we  understand  that  reason  requires  some  per- 
ceptible object,  some  perceptible  standard,  then  we 
shall  no  longer  try  to  understand  the  absolutely  rea- 
sonable, the  purely  reasonable.  We  shall  then  limit 
ourselves  to  look  for  the  reasonable,  as  for  all  other  things, 
in  concrete  objects.  The  definite,  accurate,  certain, 
uniform  result  of  some  understanding  depends  on  the 
definite  formulation  of  the  task,  on  the  accurate  lim- 
itation of  the  perceptible  quantity  which  is  to  be  un- 


140 


THE   NATURE   OF   HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


derstood.  If  a  certain  moment,  a  certain  person,  a 
certain  class,  a  certain  nation  are  given  and  at  the 
same  time  an  essential  need,  a  general  and  predomi- 
nating purpose,  then  the  question  regarding  the  rea- 
sonable or  suitable  is  easily  answered.  It  is  true  that 
we  may  also  know  something  of  things  which  are 
generally  reasonable  for  mankind  in  the  aggregate, 
but  in  that  case  our  standard  must  be  abstract  man- 
kind instead  of  some  concrete  part  of  it.  Science  may 
study  the  anatomical  structure  of  some  concrete  body 
as  well  as  the  general  type  of  the  human  body,  but 
this  again  it  can  do  only  when  it  supplies  the  faculty 
of  understanding  with  general  instead  of  individual 
material.  If  science  divides  the  whole  human  race 
into  four  or  five  races,  by  establishing  a  certain 
standard  of  physiognomy,  and  later  on  discovers  some 
individuals  or  tribes  whose  characters  are  so  peculiar 
and  rare  that  they  cannot  be  classed  under  any  of  the 
established  races,  the  existence  of  such  exceptions  is 
not  a  crime  against  the  physical  order  of  the  world, 
but  merely  a  proof  of  the  inadequacy  of  our  scientific 
classification.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  some  conven- 
tional mode  of  thought  considers  a  certain  action  as 
universally  reasonable  or  unreasonable  and  then  en- 
counters opposition  in  actual  life,  convention  fancies 
itself  exempt  from  the  work  of  understanding  and  as-' 
sumes  to  deny  civic  rights  in  the  moral  order  of  the 
world  to  its  opponents.  Instead  of  realizing  the  lim- 
ited applicability  of  its  rules  by  the  existence  of  op- 
posing practices,  convention  seeks  to  establish  an  ab- 
solute applicability  of  its  rules  by  simply  ignoring  the 
cause  of  the  opposition.  This  is  a  dogmatic  proced- 
ure, a  negative  practice,  which  ignores  facts  on  the 


''practical  reason''  or  morality 


141 


pretense  that  they  arc  irrational,  but  it  is  not  a  posi- 
tive understanding,  not  an  intelligent  knowledge, 
such  as  manifests  itself  by  the  conciliation  of  contra- 
dictions. 

If  our  study  aims  to  ascertain  what  is  universally 
human  and  reasonable,  and  if  these  predicates  are 
given  only  to  actions  which  are  reasonable  and  prac- 
ticable for  all  men,  at  all  times,  and  under  all  condi- 
tions, then  such  concepts  are  absolute,  indeterminate, 
and  to  that  extent  meaningless,  indefinite  generalities. 
We  are  stating  such  universal  and  indeterminate,  and 
therefore  unimportant  and  unpractical  concepts,  when 
we  say  that  physically  the  whole  is  greater  than  a 
part,  or  that  morally  the  good  is  preferable  to  the  bad. 
The  object  of  reason  is  that  which  is  general,  but  it  is 
the  generality  of  some  concrete  object.  The  practice 
of  reason  deals  with  individual  and  concrete  objects, 
with  the  things  which  are  the  opposite  of  the  general, 
with  special  and  concrete  knowledge.  In  order  to 
perceive  in  physics  whether  we  are  dealing  with  a 
part  or  with  the  whole  object,  we  must  handle  defi- 
nite and  concrete  objects  or  phenomena.  If  we  desire 
to  ascertain  wdiat  is  morally  preferable  as  good  or  bad, 
we  must  start  out  with  a  definite  quantity  of  human 
needs.  Abstract  and  general  reason,  with  its  socalled 
eternal  and  absolute  truths,  is  a  phantasmagoria  of 
ignorance  which  binds  the  rights  of  the  individual 
with  crushing  chains.  Real  and  true  reason  is  indi- 
vidual, it  cannot  produce  any  other  but  individual 
perceptions,  and  these  perceptions  cannot  be  general- 
ized to  any  greater  extent  than  the  general  material 
with  which  they  operate.  Only  that  is  universally 
reasonable  which   is  acknowledged   to  be   so  bv  all 


142 


THE    NATURE   OF   HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


reasons.  If  the  reason  of  some  time,  class,  or  person 
is  referred  to  as  rational,  and  if  some  other  time,  class 
or  person  considers  it  irrational;  if,  for  instance,  the 
Russian  noble  considers  serfdom  a  rational  institu- 
tion and  the  English  bourgeois  the  so-called  liberty  of 
his  wage  worker,  both  of  these  institutions  are  not 
absolutely  rational,  but  only  relatively,  only  in  a  more 
or  less  limited  circle. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  state  that  I  do  not  mean  to 
question  the  great  importance  of  our  reason  by  the 
foregoing  remarks.  Even  though  reason  cannot  in- 
dependently, or  absolutely,  discern  the  objects  of  the 
speculative  introspection,  such  as  the  objects  of  the 
moral  world,  the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  right,  the  bad, 
the  reasonable,  etc.,  it  nevertheless  is  well  fitted  to 
distinguish  relatively,  by  means  of  concrete  sense 
perceptions,  between  general  and  concrete  things,  be- 
tween the  object  and  its  manifestation,  between  fun- 
damental needs  and  fanciful  appetites.  Although  we 
may  dispense  with  the  belief  in  absolute  reason  and 
consequently  realize  that  there  can  be  no  absolute 
peace,  still  we  may  call  war  an  unmitigated  evil  when 
comparing  it  with  the  peaceful  interests  of  our  time 
or  of  our  class.  Not  until  we  abandon  our  fruitless 
exploring  trip  after  absolute  truth,  shall  we  learn  to 
find  that  which  is  true  in  space  and  time.  It  is  pre- 
cisely the  consciousness  of  the  relative  applicability  of 
our  knowledge  which  is  the  strongest  lever  of  prog- 
ress. The  believers  in  absolute  truth  have  adopted 
the  monotonous  diagram  of  "good"  men  and  "ration- 
al" institutions  as  a  basis  for  their  views  of  life.  For 
this  reason  they  oppose  all  human  and  historical  in- 
stitutions which   do  not  fit   into    their    pattern,    but 


"PRACTICAT.  reason"  OR  MORALITY 


143 


which  reality  nevertheless  produces  without  regard  to 
their  brains.  Absolute  truth  is  the  arch  foundation 
of  intolerance.  On  the  other  hand  tolerance  proceeds 
from  the  consciousness  of  the  relative  applicability  of 
"eternal  truths."  Tlie  understanding  of  pure  reason 
leads  to  the  realization  that  the  consciousness  of  the 
universal  interdependence  of  reason  is  the  true  road 
toward  practical  reason. 


(b)    Morality  and  Right. 

The  nature  of  our  task  limits  us  to  the  demonstra- 
tion that  pure  reason  is  a  nonentity,  that  reason  is  the 
sum  of  all  acts  of  individual  understanding,  that  it  deals 
only  seemingly  with  pure  and  general,  but  in  reality 
with  practical,  or  concrete,  perceptions.  We  have 
been  discussing  that  philosophy  which  pretends  to  be 
the  science  of  pure  or  absolute  understanding.  We 
found  its  aim  to  be  idle,  inasmuch  as  the  development 
of  speculative  philosophy  represents  a  succession  of 
disappointments,  because  its  unconditional  or  abso- 
lute systems  proved  to  be  limited  in  space  and  time. 
Our  presentation  of  the  matter  has  revealed  the  rela- 
tive character  of  so-called  eternal  truths.  We  per- 
ceived that  reason  was  dependent  on  sense  percep- 
tions, we  found  that  any  truth  required  definite  limits 
for  its  determination.  As  regards  more  especially 
life's  wisdom,  we  saw  that  the  acquired  knowledge  of 
"pure"  reason  manifested  itself  in  practice  by  the  de- 
pendence of  the  wise  or  the  rational  upon  concrete 
sense  perceptions.  If  we  now  apply  this  theory  to 
morality  as  such,  we  must  be  able  to  establish  har- 
mony also  in  this  field,  where  there  is  some  doubt  as 


144 


THE   NATURE   OF    HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


''practical  reason"  or  morality 


145 


to  what  is  right  and  wrong,  by  means  of  the  scientific 
method. 

Pagan  morality  is  different  from  Christian  moral- 
ity. Feudal  morality  differs  from  modern  bourgeois 
morality  as  does  bravery  from  solvency.  In  brief,  we 
need  no  detailed  illustration  to  show  that  different 
times  and  nations  have  different  moralities.  We  have 
but  to  understand  that  this  change  is  necessary,  a 
special  characteristic  of  the  human  race  and  of  its 
historical  development,  and  we  shall  then  exchange 
the  belief  in  "eternal  truths,"  which  every  ruling  class 
claims  to  be  identical  with  its  own  selfish  laws,  for 
the  scientific  knowledge  that  absolute,  right  is  purely 
a  concept  which  we  derive  by  means  of  the  faculty  of 
thought  from  the  various  successive  rights.  Right  as 
an  absolute  concept  means  no  more  and  no  less  than 
any  other  general  concept,  for  instance,  the  head  in 
general.  Every  real  head  is  a  concrete  one  and  be- 
longs either  to  man  or  to  some  other  animal,  it  is 
either  long  or  broad,  narrow  or  wide,  in  other  words 
it  has  special  peculiarities.  But  at  the  same  time, 
every  concrete  head  has  certain  general  qualities 
which  are  universal  in  all  heads,  for  instance  the  qual- 
ity of  being  the  superintendent  of  the  body.  More- 
over, every  head  has  as  many  general  as  individual 
traits,  it  is  no  more  personal  than  it  is  common.  The 
faculty  of  thought  abstracts  the  general  traits  from  the 
actual  concrete  heads  and  in  this  way  creates  the  con- 
cept of  the  absolute  head.  Just  as  the  absolute  head, 
or  the  head,  is  composed  of  the  general  qualities  of 
all  heads,  so  the  absolute  right  stands  merely  for  the 
general  characters  of  all  rights.  Both  of  these  con- 
cepts exist  merely  as  ideas,  not  as  objects. 


Every  real  right  is  a  concrete  right,  it  is  right  only 
under  certain  conditions,  at  definite  periods,  for  this 
or  that  nation.    "Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  is  right  in  peace, 
but  wrong  in  war;  it  is  right  for  the  majority  of  bour- 
geois society  that  wishes  to  see  the  outbursts  of  pas- 
sion controlled  in  the  interest  of  its  own  predominant 
needs,  but  wrong  for  the  savage  who  has  not  arrived 
at  the  period  where  a  peaceful  and  social  life  is  ap- 
preciated, and  who  therefore  would  consider  the  above 
commandment  as  an  immoral  restriction  of  his  liberty. 
For  the   love  of  life,  murder  is  a  detestable  abomina- 
tion, for   revenge  it  is  a  sweet  satisfaction.     In  the 
same  way  robbery  seems  right  to  the  robber,  wrong  to 
the  robbed.    There  can  be  no  question  of  any  absolute 
wrong  in  such  cases,  only  of  wTong  in  a  relative  sense. 
An  action  is  wrong  in  a  general  sense  only  in  so  far 
as  it  is  generally  disliked.     Plain  robbery  is  wrong  in 
the  opinion  of  the  great  majority  today  because  our 
generation  takes  more  interest  in  bourgeois  affairs  of 
commerce  and  industry  than  in  the  adventures  of  the 
knights  of  the  road. 

If  there  were  such  a  thing  as  an  absolutely  right 
law,  dogma,  or  action,  it  w^ould  have  to  serve  the  wel- 
fare of  all  mankind  under  all  conditions  and  at  all 
times.  But  human  welfare  is  as  different  as  men,  cir- 
cumstances, and  time.  What  is  good  for  me  is  bad 
for  another,  and  the  thing  which  may  be  beneficial  as 
a  rule  may  be  injurious  as  an  exception.  What  pro- 
motes some  interests  in  one  period  may  interfere  with 
them  in  another.  A  law  which  would  presume  to  be 
absolutely  right  would  have  to  be  right  for  every  one 
and  at  all  times.  No  absolute  morality,  no  duty,  no 
categorical  imperative,  no  idea  of  the  good,  can  teach 


it 


146  THE  NATURE  OF   HUMAN   BRAIN    WORK 

man  what  is  good,  bad,  right,  or  wrong.    That  is  good 
which  corresponds  to  our  needs,  that  is  bad  which  is 
contrary  to  them.    But  is  there  anything  which  is  ab- 
sokitelygood?    Everything  and  nothing.    It  is  not  the 
straight    timber    which    is    good,    nor    the    crooked. 
Neither  is  good,  or  either  is  good,  according  to  wheth- 
er I  need  it  or  not.     And   since   we  need  all    things, 
we    can    see    some    good    in    all    of    them.      We    are 
not  limited  to  any  one  thing.    We  are  unlimited,  uni- 
versal, and  need  everything.     Our  interests  are  there- 
fore  innumerable,  inexpressibly  great,   and   therefore 
every  law  is  inadequate,  because  it  always  considers 
only  some  special  welfare,  some  special  interest.    And 
for  this  reason  no  right  is  right,  or  all  of  them  are 
right,  and  it  is  as  right  to  say  "Thou  shalt  not  kill"  as 
it  is  to  say  ''Thou  shalt  kill." 

The  difference  between  good  needs  and  bad  needs, 
right  wants  and  wrong  wants,  like  that  between  truth 
and  error,  reasonable  and  unreasonable,  finds  its  con- 
ciliation in  the  difference  between  the   concrete  and 
the  general.    Reason  cannot  discover  within  itself  any 
positive  rights  or  absolutely  moral  codes  any  more 
than  any  other  speculative  truth.     It  cannot  estimate 
how  essential  or  unessential  a  thing  is,  or  classify  the 
quantity  of  concrete  and  general  characters,  until  it 
has  some  perceptible  material  to  work  upon.    The  un- 
derstanding of  the  right,  or  of  the  moral,  like  all  un- 
derstanding, strives  to  single  out  the  general  charac- 
teristics of  its  object.    But  the  general  is  only  possi- 
ble within  certain  defined  limits,  it  exists  only  as  the 
general  qualities  of  some    concrete    and    determined 
perceptible  object.    And  if  any  one  tries  to  represent 
some  maxim,  some  law,  some  right  in  the  light  of  an 


(< 


PRACTICAL  REASON     OR  MORALITY 


147 


absolute  maxim,  law  or  right,  he  forgets  this  neces- 
sary limitation.  Absolute  right  is  merely  a  meaning- 
less concept,  and  it  does  not  assume  even  a  vague 
meaning  until  it  is  understood  to  stand  for  the  right 
of  mankind  in  general.  But  morality,  or  the  determi- 
nation of  that  which  is  right,  has  a  practical  purpose. 
Yet,  if  we  accept  the  general  and  unconditional  right 
of  mankind  as  a  moral  right,  we  necessarily  miss  our 
practical  aim.  An  act  or  a  line  of  action  which  is  uni- 
versally or  everywhere  right  requires  no  law  for  its 
enforcement,  for  it  will  recommend  itself.  It  is  only 
the  determined  and  limited  law,  adapted  to  certain 
persons,  classes,  nations,  times,  or  circumstances, 
which  has  any  practical  value,  and  it  is  so  much  more 
practical  the  more  defined,  exact,  precise  and  the  less 
general  it  is. 

The  most  universal  and  most  widely  recognized 
right  or  need  is  in  its  quality  no  more  rightful,  better, 
or  valuable  than  the  most  insignificant  right  of  the 
moment,  than  the  momentary  need  of  some  individual. 
Although  we  know  that  the  sun  is  hundreds  of  thous- 
ands of  miles  in  diameter,  we  are  nevertheless  free 
to  see  it  no  larger  than  a  plate.  And  though  we  may 
acknowledge  that  some  moral  law  is  theoretically  or 
universally  good  or  holy,  we  are  free  in  practice  to  re- 
ject it  momentarily,  in  parts,  or  individually,  as  bad 
and  useless.  Even  the  most  sacred  right  of  the  most 
universal  extent  is  valid  only  within  certain  definite 
limits,  and  within  particular  limits  an  otherwise  very 
great  wrong  may  be  a  valid  right.  It  is  true  that 
there  is  an  eternal  difference  between  assumed  and 
true  interests,  between  passion  and  reason,  between 
essential,    predominating,    general,    well-founded    needs 


148 


THE   NATURE  OF    HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


(f 


PRACTICAL  reason''  OR  MORALITY 


149 


and  inclinations,  and  accidental,  subordinate,  special 
appetites.  But  this  difference  is  not  one  of  two  sep- 
arated worlds,  a  world  of  the  good  and  a  world  of  the 
bad.  It  is  not  a  positive,  general,  continuous,  abso- 
lute difference,  but  merely  a  relative  one.  Like  the 
difference  between  beautiful  and  homely,  it  depends 
on  the  individuality  of  the  person  who  distinguishes. 
That  which  is  a  true  and  fundamental  need  in  one 
case,  is  a  secondary,  subordinate,  and  wrong  desire  in 
another. 

Morality  is  the  aggregate  of  the  most  contradictory 
ethical  lazvs  which  serve  the  common  purpose  of  regulat- 
ing the  conduct  of  man  tozvard  himself  and  others  in  such 
a  zvay  that  the  future  is  considered  as  zvell  as  the  present, 
the  one  as  well  as  the  other,  the  individual  as  well  as  the 
genus.  The  individual  man  finds  himself  lacking,  inade- 
quate, limited  in  many  zeays.  He  requires  for  his  comple- 
ment other  people,  society,  and  must  therefore  live  and  let 
live.  The  mutual  concessions  which  arise  out  of  these 
relative  needs  are  called  morality. 

The  inadequacy  of  the  single  individual,  the  need 
of  association,  is  the  basis  and  cause  of  man's  considera- 
tion for  his  neighbor,  of  morality.  Now  since  the  one 
who  feels  this  need,  man,  is  necessarily  an  individual, 
it  follows  that  his  need  must  likewise  be  indivrdual 
and  more  or  less  intensive.  And  since  my  neighbors 
are  necessarily  different  from  me,  it  requires  different 
considerations  to  meet  their  needs.  Concrete  man 
needs  a  concrete  morality.  Just  as  abstract  and 
meaningless  as  the  concept  of  mankind  in  general  is 
that  of  absolute  morality,  and  the  ethical  laws  derived 
from  this  vague  idea  are  quite  as  unpractical  and  un- 
successful.   I^Ian  is  a  living  personality,  whose  welfare 


and  purpose  is  embodied  within  himself,  who  has  be- 
tween himself  and  the  world  nothing  but  his  needs  as 
a  mediator,  who  owes  no  allegiance  to  any  law  what- 
ever from  the  moment  thrt  it  contravenes  his  needs. 
The  moral  duty  of  an  individual  never  exceeds  his 
interests.  The  only  thing  which  exceeds  those  inter- 
ests is  the  material  power  of  the  generality  over  the 
individuality. 

If  we  regard  it  as  the  function  of  reason  to  ascer- 
tain that  which  is  morally  right,  a  uniform  scientific 
result  may  be  produced  if  we  agree  at  the  outset  on 
the   persons,   conditions,  or   limits   within   which   the 
universal  moral   right  is  to  be  determined;  in  other 
words,  we  may  accomplish  something  practical  if  wc 
drop  the  idea  of  absolute  right  and  search  for  definite 
rights  applicable  to  Vv^ell-defined  purposes  by  clearly 
stating  our  problem.    The  contradiction  in  the  various 
standards  of  morality,  and  the  many  opposing  solu- 
tions of  this  contradiction,  are  due  to  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  problem.     To  look  for  right  without  a  given 
quantity  of  sense  perceptions,  without  some  definite 
working  material,  is   an    act    of    speculative    reason 
which  pretends  to  explore  nature  without  the  use  of 
senses.     The  attempt  to  arrive  at  a  positive  determi- 
nation of  morality  by  pure  perception  and  pure  reason  is 
a  manifestation  of  the  philosophical  faith  in  understanding 
a  priori. 

'It  is  true,"  said  Macaulay  in  his  Histdry  of  En- 
gland, in  speaking  of  the  rebellion  against  the  lawless 
and  cruel  government  of  James  II.,  "that  to  trace  the 
exact  boundary  between  rightful  and  wrongful  re- 
sistance is  impossible:  but  this  impossibility  arises 
from  the  nature  of  right  and  wrong,  and  is  found  in 


It 


150 


THE    NATURE   OF   HUMAN   BRAIN    WORK 


'"practical  reason"  or  morality 


151 


every  part  of  ethical  science.  A  good  action  is  not 
distinguished  from  a  bad  action  by  marks  so  plain  as 
those  which  distinguish  a  hexagon  from  a  square. 
There  is  a  frontier  where  virtue  and  vice  fade  into 
each  other.  Who  has  ever  been  able  to  define  the 
exact  boundary  between  courage  and  rashness,  be- 
tween prudence  and  cowardice,  between  frugality  and 
avarice,  between  liberality  and  prodigality?  Who  has 
ever  been  able  to  say  how  far  mercy  to  offenders  ought 
to  be  carried,  and  where  it  ceases  to  deserve  the  name 
of  mercy  and  becomes  a  pernicious  weakness?" 

It  is  not  the  impossibility  of  accurately  determin- 
ing this  limit  to  which  the  nature  of  the  difference  be- 
tween right  and  wrong,  in  the  sense  of  Alacaulay,  is 
due.  It  is  rather  due  to  the  vague  thought  which  be- 
lieves in  an  unlimited  right,  in  absolute  virtues  and 
faults,  which  has  not  risen  to  the  understanding  that 
the  terms  good,  brave,  right,  and  bad  are  valid  always 
and  everywhere  only  in  relation  to  some  concrete  in- 
dividual who  reasons,  and  that  they  have  no  validity 
in  themselves.  Courage  is  foolhardiness  in  the  eyes 
of  the  cautious,  and  caution  is  cowardice  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  daring.  The  revolt  against  existing  gov- 
ernments is  always  right  in  the  eyes  of  the  rebels,  al- 
ways wrong  in  the  opinion  of  the  attacked.  No  action 
can  be  absolutely  right  or  wrong 

The  same  qualities  of  man  are  good  or  bad,  accord- 
ing to  his  needs  and  their  uses,  according  to  time  and 
place.  Here  trickery,  slyness,  and  bad  faith  prevail, 
there  loyalty,  frankness  and  straightforwardness.  Here 
compassion  and  charity  serve  their  purpose  and  pro- 
mote welfare,  there  ruthless  and  bloody  severity.  The 
quantity,  the  more  or  less  beneficial  effect  of  a  human 


quality,  determines  the  difference  between  virtue  and 
vice. 

Reason  can  distinguish  between  right  and  wrong, 
virtue  and  vice,  only  to  the  extent  that  it  can  meas- 
ure the  relative  quantity  of  right  in  any  faculty,  rule, 
or  action.  No  categorical  imperative,  no  ethical  code, 
can  serve  as  a  basis  for  the  real  practical  right.  On 
the  contrary,  ethics  finds  its  justification  in  the  actual 
righteousness  of  perceptible  objects.  For  general 
reason,  frankness  is  not  a  better  quality  than  slyness. 
Frankness  is  preferable  to  slyness  only  inasmuch  as 
it  is  quantitatively,  that  is  to  say,  more  frequently, 
better,  and  more  generally  appreciated  than  slyness.  It 
follows  that  a  science  of  right  can  serve  as  a  guide  in 
practice  only  to  the  extent  that  practice  has  served  as 
a  basis  for  science.  Reason  cannot  determine  the  ac- 
tion of  man  beforehand,  because  it  can  only  expe- 
rience, but  not  anticipate  reality,  because  every  man, 
every  situation,  is  new,  original,  exists  for  the  first 
time,  and  because  the  possibilities  of  reason  are  con- 
fined to  understanding  a  posteriori. 

Absolute  right,  or  right  in  itself,  is  an  imagined 
right,  is  a  speculative  desire.  A  scientifically  univer- 
sal right  requires  certain  definite  and  perceptible 
premises  which  form  the  basis  of  the  determination  of 
the  general.  Science  is  not  a  dogmatic  infallibility 
which  may  say :  This  or  that  is  right,  because  it  is  so 
understood.  Science  requires  for  its  perceptions  some 
external  object.  It  can  perceive  right  only  if  it  rightly 
exists.  The  universal  existence  is  the  material,  pre- 
mise, condition,  and  cause  of  science. 

From  the  foregoing  follows  the  postulate  that  mo- 
rality must  be  studied  inductively  or  scientifically,  not 


rr 


153 


THE   NATURE   OF   HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


''practical  reason''  or  M0R.\LITY 


153 


speculatively  by  the  method  of  traditional  philosophy. 
We  must  not  attempt  to  study  absolute,  but  only  rela- 
tive rights,  only  rights  based  on  certain  premises,  and 
only  this  can  be  the  moral  problem  of  reason.  Thus 
the  belief  in  a  moral  order  of  the  world  is  dissolved 
in  the  consciousness  of  human  freedom.  The  under- 
standing of  reason,  of  knowledge,  of  science,  includes 
the  understanding  of  the  limited  validity  of  all  ethical 
maxims. 

Whatever  impressed  man  as  salutary,  valuable, 
divine,  was  exhibited  by  him  in  the  tabernacle  of  faith 
as  the  most  venerable  thing.  The  Egyptian  wor- 
shiped the  cat,  the  Christian  venerates  the  divine 
providence.  So,  when  his  needs  led  him  to  live  a  well- 
regulated  life,  the  benefits  of  the  law  inspired  him 
with  such  a  high  opinion  of  its  noble  origin  that  he 
adopted  his  own  handiwork  as  a  gift  of  heaven.  The 
invention  of  the  mouse-trap  or  other  useful  appli- 
ances pushed  the  cat  out  of  its  exalted  position. 
Whenever  man  becomes  his  own  master,  takes  care  of 
himself,  and  provides  for  himself,  then  all  other  provi- 
dences become  useless,  and  his  own  mastership 
makes  all  superior  tutelege  unbearable.  Man  is  a 
jealous  creature.  Ruthlessly  he  subordinates  every- 
thing to  his  own  interests,  even  God  and  His  t:om- 
mandments.  No  matter  how  great  or  venerable  an 
authority  any  code  may  have  acquired  by  long  and 
faithful  service,  as  soon  as  new  needs  oppose  it,  they 
degrade  the  divine  authority  to  the  ranks  of  human 
law  and  transform  ancient  right  into  modern  wrong. 
The  Christian  frivolity  refused  to  respect  the  threat 
of  physical  retribution  which  the  Hebrew  had  anoint- 
ed  as  an   authority   in   moral   questions  and   revered 


under  the  maxim :  Eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth.  The 
Christian  had  learned  to  cherish  the  blessings  of 
peacefulness ;  he  carried  submissive  tolerance  into  the 
holy  land,  and  decorated  the  vacant  tabernacle  with 
the  gentle  injunction  to  offer  the  left  cheek  when  the 
right  was  tired  of  cuffs.  In  our  times  which  are  Chris- 
tian in  name,  but  very  anti-Christian  in  deeds,  the 
long  venerated  tolerance  has  long  gone  out  of  use. 

Just  as  every  religion  has  its  own  peculiar  God,  so 
every  time  has  its  own  peculiar  right.  To  this  extent, 
religion  and  morality  are  in  harmony  with  the  worship 
of  their  sanctum.  But  they  become  arrogant  up- 
starts whenever  they  assume  to  exceed  thir  natural 
boundaries,  whenever  they  attempt  to  saddle  upon 
all  circumstances,  under  the  pretense  of  offering 
something  incomparable,  absolute,  permanent,  that 
which  is  divine  and  right  at  certain  times  and  under 
definite  conditions ;  whenever  they  proclaim  a  success- 
ful remedy  for  their  own  peculiar  disease  as  a  univer- 
sal patent  medicine  for  all  diseases;  whenever  they 
overbearingly  forget  their  descent.  A  law  is  origi- 
nally dictated  by  some  individual  need,  and  then  man- 
kind with  its  universal  needs  is  supposed  to  balance 
itself  on  the  thin  rope  of  this  one  rule.  Originally  that 
which  is  really  good  is  right,  and  thereafter  only  some 
decreed  right  is  supposed  to  be  really  good.  That  is 
the  unbearable  arrogance.  Ordained  right  is  not  sat- 
isfied to  serve  as  the  right  of  this  time,  this  nation  or 
country,  this  class  or  caste.  It  wants  to  dominate  the 
whole  w^orld,  wants  to  be  absolute  right,  just  as  if 
a  certain  pill  could  be  absolute  medicine,  could  be 
good  for  everything.  It  is  the  mission  of  progress  to 
repulse  this  assumption,  to  pluck  this  peacock  feather 


154 


THE   NATURE   OF   HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


out  of  the  tail  of  the  rooster,  by  leading  mankind  on 
beyond  the  boundaries  prescribed  by  ordained  law,  by 
extending  the  world  for  him,  by  conquering  for  his 
cramped  interests  a  wider  liberty.  The  migration 
from  Palestine  to  Europe  where  the  consumption  of 
pork  does  not  cause  leprosy  emancipates  our  natural 
freedom  from  a  once  divine  restriction  by  making  it 
irrelevant.  But  progress  does  not  deprive  one  God  of 
his  shoulder  straps  for  the  purpose  of  decorating  some 
other  God  with  them.  That  would  merely  be  an  ex- 
change, not  an  acquirement.  Evolution  does  not 
drive  the  saints  of  tradition  out  of  the  country;  it 
simply  retires  them  from  the  wrongfully  occupied 
field  of  universality  into  their  peculiar  boundaries. 
Progress  picks  up  the  child  and  then  pours  the  water 
out  of  the  bath  tub.  Though  the  cat  may  have  lost 
its  aureole  and  ceased  to  be  a  God,  it  does  not  give  up 
catching  mice;  and  though  the  Jewish  rules  for  bodily 
cleanliness  at  certain  definite  times  have  long  been 
forgotten,  a  clean  body  is  still  highly  respected.  The 
present  wealth  of  civilization  is  due  only  to  the 
economical  administration  of  the  acquirements  of  the 
past.  Evolution  is  as  much  conservative  as  it  is  revo- 
lutionary, and  it  finds  as  much  wrong  as  right  in  every 
law. 

It  is  true  that  the  believers  in  absolute  duty  scent 
a  difference  between  moral  and  legal  right.  But  their 
self-interested  narrowness  does  not  permit  them  to 
realize  that  every  law  is  originally  moral  and  that 
every  special  morality  is  gradually  reduced  to  the  level 
of  a  mere  law.  Their  understanding  reaches  into 
other  times  and  other  classes,  but  does  not  reach 
their  own  time  and  class.     The  laws  of  the  Chinese 


"practical  reason''  or  morality 


155 


and  Samoyeds  are  understood  to  refer  to  the  peculiar 
requirements  of  those  people.  But  the  rules  of  bour- 
geois society  are  supposed  to  be  far  more  sublime. 
Our  present  day  institutions  and  moral  codes  are 
either  regarded  as  eternal  truths  of  nature  or  reason, 
or  as  permanent  oracular  expressions  of  a  pure  con- 
science. Just  as  if  the  barbarian  did  not  have  a  bar- 
barian reason;  as  if  the  Turk  did  not  have  a  Turkish 
conscience  and  the  Hebrew  a  Hebrew  one;  as  if  man 
could  follow  the  dictates  of  some  absolute  conscience, 
instead  of  the  conscience  being  conditioned  on  the 
man. 

Whoever  limits  the  purpose  of  man  to  the  love 
and  service  of  God,  and  to  eternal  blessedness  here- 
after, may  devoutly  recognize  the  traditions  of 
abstract  morality  as  authoritative  and  guide  himself 
accordingly.  But  whoever  regards  development, 
education,  and  blessedness  on  earth  as  man's  life  pur- 
pose, will  not  think  that  the  questioning  of  the  as- 
sumed superiority  of  traditional  morals  is  irrelevant. 
It  is  only  the  consciousness  of  individual  freedom 
which  creates  sufficient  unconcern  for  the  rules  made 
by  others  to  permit  a  brave  advance,  which  emanci- 
pates us  from  the  striving  for  an  illusory  absolute 
ideal,  for  some  ''best  world,"  and  which  restores  us  to 
the  definite  practical  interests  of  our  time  and  per- 
sonality. At  the  same  time  we  are  thus  reconciled 
with  the  world  as  it  really  is,  because  we  no  longer 
regard  it  as  the  unsuccessful  realization  of  that  which 
ought  .to  be,  but  rather  as  the  systematization  of  that 
which  cannot  but  be.  The  world  is  always  right. 
Whatever  exists,  is  right  and  is  not  fated  to  be  other- 
wise until  it  changes.     Wherever  there  is  existence. 


't^ 


ih 


\\\ 


^ 


156 


THE   NATURE   OF    HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


which  is  power,  there  is  also  right  without  any  further 
condition,  because  it  is  right  in  a  formative  stage. 
Weakness  has  no  other  right  than  that  of  striving  for 
supremacy  and  then  enforcing  a  recognition  of  its 
long  denied  needs.  The  study  of  history  shows  us 
not  only  the  negative  and  ridiculous  side  of  the  re- 
ligions, customs,  institutions  and  ideas  of  the  past, 
but  also  their  positive,  reasonable  and  necessary  side. 
It  explains  to  us,  for  instance,  that  the  deification  of 
animals  was  due  to  an  enthusiastic  recognition  of 
their  usefulness.  And  so  the  study  of  history  shows 
not  alone  the  inadequacy  of  the  things  of  the  present, 
but  also  demonstrates  that  they  are  the  reasonable 
and  necessary  conclusions  from  the  premises  of  pre- 
vious stages. 

(c)   The  Holy. 

In  the  well-known  statement:  The  end  sanctifies 
the  means,  the  developed  theory  of  morality  finds  its 
practical  expression.  This  maxim,  used  in  an  ambigu- 
ous sense,  may  stand  as  a  common  reproach  for  us 
and  for  the  Jesuits.  The  defenders  of  the  society  of 
Jesus  make  eflforts  to  prove  that  it  is  a  malignant 
attempt  to  discredit  their  clients.  We  shall  not  try  to 
speak  for  either  party  to  this  dispute,  but  will  de\^ote 
ourselves  to  the  subject  matter  itself,  and  seek  to  sub- 
stantiate the  truth  and  reasonableness  of  this  maxim, 
to  rehabilitate  it  in  the  public  opinion. 

It  will  be  sufficient  for  the  refutation  of  the  most 
general  opposition  to  understand  that  end  and  .means 
are  very  relative  terms,  that  all  concrete  ends  are 
means  and  all  means  are  ends.  There  is  no  more  of 
a  positive  difference  between  great  and  small,  right 


''practical  reason"  OR  MORALITY 


157 


and  wrong,  virtue  and  vice,  than  there  is  between 
end  and  means.  Considered  as  something  integral  by 
itself,  every  action  has  its  own  end  and  its  means  are 
the  various  moments  of  which  even  the  shortest  action 
is  composed.  Every  concrete  action  is  a  means  in  re- 
lation to  other  actions  which  aim  at  the  same  com- 
mon effect.  But  in  themselves  actions  are  neither 
ends  nor  means.  Nothing  is  anything  by  itself.  All 
being  is  relative.  Things  are  what  they  are  only 
within  and  by  their  interrelations.  Circumstances 
alter  cases.  In  so  far  as  every  action  is  accompanied 
by  other  actions,  it  is  a  means,  and  serves  a  common 
end  which  exceeds  its  own  special  end ;  but  inasmuch 
as  every  action  is  complete  in  itself  it  is  an  end  which 
includes  its  own  means.  We  eat  in  order  to  live ;  but 
so  far  as  we  are  living  while  we  are  eating,  we  are 
living  in  order  to  eat.  As  life  to  its  functions,  so  the 
end  is  related  to  its  means.  Just  as  life  is  simply  the 
sum  of  all  life's  functions,  so  the  end  is  the  sum  of  all 
its  means.  The  difference  between  means  and  end 
reduces  itself  to  that  between  the  concrete  and  the  gen- 
eral. And  all  abstract  differences  reduce  themselves 
to  this  difference,  because  the  faculty  of  abstraction 
or  distinction  reduces  itself  to  the  faculty  of  distin- 
guishing between  the  concrete  and  the  general.  But 
this  distinction  presupposes  the  existence  of  some 
material,  some  given  objects,  some  circle  of  sense  per- 
ceptions by  which  it  manifests  itself.  If  this  circle  is 
found  in  the  field  of  actions  or  functions,  in  other 
words,  if  a  previously  defined  number  of  different 
actions  is  the  object  of  our  study,  then  we  refer  to  the 
general  character  of  these  objects  as  the  general  end 
and  to  every  more  or  less  extended  part  of  them,  or  to 


Ih 


it] 


158 


THE    NATURE   OF   ITU  MAX    TRAIN    WORK 


every  function,  as  a  means.  Whether  any  definite 
action  is  considered  as  an  end  or  as  a  means,  depends 
on  the  question  whether  we  consider  it  as  a  whole  in 
relation  to  its  own  parts,  or  as  a  part  of  some  wdiole 
in  which  it  is  connected  with  other  parts,  with  other 
actions.  From  a  general  point  of  view  which  has  all 
human  actions  for  the  object  of  its  study,  and  encom- 
passes them  all,  there  exists  only  one  end,  viz.,  the 
human  welfare.  This  welfare  is  the  end  of  all  ends,  is 
the  final  end,  is  the  real,  true,  universal  end  compared 
to  which  all  special  ends  are  but  means. 

Now,  our  claim  that  the  end  sanctifies  the  means 
can  have  absolute  validity  only  in  regard  to  some 
absolute  end.  But  all  concrete  ends  are  relative  and 
finite.  The  one  and  sole  absolute  end  is  human  wel- 
fare, and  it  is  an  end  which  sanctifies  all  rules  and 
actions,  all  means,  so  long  as  they  are  subservient  to 
it,  but  which  reviles  them  as  soon  as  they  go  their 
own  way  without  serving  it.  The  human  weal  is  lit- 
erally and  historically  the  origin  of  the  holy.  That 
which  is  hale  is  holy.  At  the  same  time  we  must  not 
ignore  the  fact  that  the  weal,  or  hale,  in  general,  the 
hale  which  sanctifies  all  means,  is  but  an  abstraction, 
the  real  content  of  which  is  as  diflferent  as  are  the 
times,  the  nations,  or  persons  which  are  seeking  for 
their  welfare.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  de- 
termination of  that  which  is  holy  or  for  the  human 
weal  requires  definite  conditions,  that  no  action,  no 
means,  is  holy  in  itself,  that  each  one  of  them  is  sanc- 
tified only  by  definite  relations.  It  is  not  every  end 
which  sanctifies  the  means,  but  the  holy  end  which 
sanctifies  its  own  means.     But  since  every  real  and 


rRAC'liCAL  RKAS:>..      C.R  MORALITY- 


159 


concrete  end  is  only  relatively  holy,  it  .can  sanctify  its 
own  means  only  relatively. 

The  opposition  against  our  maxim  is  not  so  much 
directed  against  it,  as  against  the  wrong  application  of 
it.  Recognition  is  denied  and  the  socalled  sanctified 
ends  are  accorded  only  limited  means,  because  there 
is  lurking  in  the  background  the  consciousness  that 
these  ends  have  only  a  relative  holiness.  On  the  other 
hand  our  defense  of  the  maxim  does  not  imply  that 
the  various  nominally  holy  means  and  ends  are  sanc- 
tified because  some  authority,  some  scriptural  state- 
ment, some  reason  or  conscience,  has  declared  them 
to  be  so,  but  only  in  so  far  as  they  answer  the  common 
end  of  all  ends,  the  human  welfare.  Our  maxim  of 
ends  does  not  at  all  teach  that  we  should  sacrifice  love 
and  truths  to  sanctified  faith,  but  neither  does  it  de- 
mand that  we  should  sacrifice  faith  for  love  and  truth. 
It  merely  states  the  fact  that,  whenever  some  superior 
end  has  been  determined  by  sense  perceptions  or  cir- 
cumstances, all  means  contrary  to  that  end  are  un- 
holy, and  that  on  the  other  hand  means  which  are 
generally  unholy  may  become  temporarily  and  indi- 
vidually sanctioned  by  their  relation  to  some  momen- 
tary or  individual  welfare.  Wherever  peacefulness  is 
actually  in  favor  as  a  sanctified  means,  war  is  unholy. 
When,  on  the  other  hand,  man  seeks  his  salvation  in 
war,  then  murder  and  incendiarism  are  holy  means. 
In  other  words,  our  reason  requires  for  a  valid  de- 
termination of  that  which  is  sanctified  certain  definite 
material  conditions  or  facts  as  premises;  it  cannot  de- 
termine the  holy  in  general,  not  a  priori,  not  philo- 
sophically in  the  old  speculative  way,  but  only  in  con- 
crete cases,  a  posteriori,  only  empirically. 


IGO 


THE   NATURE  OF    HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


If  we  understand  that  human  welfare  Is  the  end 
of  all  ends,  the  ideal  of  all  means ;  if  we  furthermore 
dispense  with  all  special  determinations  of  this  wel- 
fare, with  all  personal  ideas  of  it,  and  recognize  that 
it  is  different  under  different  circumstances,  then  we 
understand  at  the  same  time  that  no  means  is 
sanctified  beyond  the  sanctity  of  its  end.  No 
means,  no  action,  is  positively  sanctified  or  makes 
for  human  welfare  under  all  circumstances.  Ac- 
cording to  circumstances  and  relations  one  and 
the  same  means  may  be  good  or  bad.  A  thing 
is  good  only  to  the  extent  that  its  results  are 
good,  only  to  the  extent  that  there  is  good  in  its  end. 
Lying  and  cheating  are  bad  only  because  they  result 
injuriously  for  ourselves,  because  we  do  not  wish  to 
be  lied  to  or  cheated.  But  whenever  a  sanctified  end 
is  in  question,  the  deceptive  means  used  in  lying  and 
cheating  are  called  tricks  of  war.  If  any  one  is  firmly 
rooted  in  the  goodness  of  chastity  because  he  thinks  it 
was  ordained  by  God,  we  cannot  discuss  the  matter 
with  him.  But  if  one  honors  virtue  for  the  sake  of 
virtue  and  abhors  vice  for  the  sake  of  vice,  in  other 
words,  for  their  consequences,  he  admits  that  he  sacri- 
fices the  lust  of  the  flesh  to  the  end  of  good  health.  In 
short,  he  admits  that  the  means  are  sanctified  by  the 
end. 

In  the  Christian  conception  of  the  world,  the  com- 
mandments of  its  religion  are  absolutely  good  for  all 
time,  they  are  considered  good  because  Christian  reve- 
lation declares  them  to  be  so.  This  conception  does 
not  know  that,  for  instance,  its  acme  of  virtue,  the 
specifically  Christian  virtue  of  abstemiousness,  re- 
ceived its  value  only  by  contrast  with  corrupt  heath- 


rRACTICAL  REASON      OR  MORALITY 


IGl 


enish  licentiousness,  but  that  it  is  not  a  virtue  when 
compared  to  reasonable  and  normal  satisfaction  of 
material  needs.  It  deals  with  certain  means  which  it 
calls  indiscriminately  good  without  any  relation  to 
their  ends,  and  others  which  it  calls  indiscriminately 
bad  in  the  same  absolute  way.  And  for  this  reason,  it 
opposes  the  above  named  maxim. 

But  modern  Christianity,  modern  civilization,  has  prac- 
tically long  done  away  with  this  faith.  It  does  indeed  call 
the  soul  the  likeness  of  God  and  the  body  a  putrid 
food  for  worms ;  but  its  deeds  prove  that  it  does  not 
take  its  religious  phrases  seriously.  It  cares  little  for 
the  better  part  of  man  and  directs  all  its  thoughts  and 
actions  toward  the  satisfaction  of  the  despised  body. 
It  employs  science  and  art,  and  the  products  of  all 
climates,  for  the  glorification  of  the  body,  clothing  it 
sumptuously,  feeding  it  luxuriously,  caring  for  it  ten- 
derly, resting  it  on  soft  cushions.  Although  they 
speak  slightingly  of  this  earthly  life  in  comparison  to 
the  eternal  life  beyond,  yet  in  practice  they  cling  for 
six  days  of  the  w^eek  to  the  uninterrupted  pleasures  of 
this  body,  while  heaven  is  hardly  considered  worthy 
of  careless  attention  for  more  than  one  short  hour  on 
Sundays.  With  the  same  thoughtless  inconsistency 
the  socalled  Christian  world  also  attacks  our  maxim 
with  words,  while  in  practical  life  it  sanctifies  the 
despised  means  by  the  end  of  its  own  welfare,  going 
even  so  far  as  to  demonstrate  its  inconsistency  in  its 
own  life  by  subsidizing  prostitution  with  state  funds. 
The  fact  that  the  legislative  bodies  of  our  representa- 
tive states  keep  down  the  enemies  of  their  bourgeois 
order  by  courtmartials  and  exile,  that  they  justify  this 
course  by  the  proverb,  ''Do  unto  others  as  you  would 


102 


THE   NATURE   (3f    HUMAN    DRAIN    WORK 


that  they  should  do  unto  you/'  in  the  interest  of  "pub- 
lic" welfare,  or  that  they  defend  their  divorce  codes  by 
the  plea  of  individual  welfare,  proves  that  the  bour- 
geoisie also  believes  in  the  motto:  The  end  sanctifies 
the  means.  And  even  though  the  citizens  delegate 
rights  to  the  state  which  they  deny  to  themselves,  also 
our  opponents  cannot  but  admit  that  in  so  doing  the 
citizens  are  simply  delegating  their  own  rights  to  the 
superior  authority  of  the  state. 

True,  whoever  employs  lying  and  cheating  in  the 
bourgeois  world  for  the  end  of  gaining  wealth,  even 
though  he  may  make  it  one  of  his  ends  to  give  to 
charity,  or  whoever  steals  leather,  like  Saint  Chispinus, 
for  the  purpose  of  making  shoes  for  poor  people,  does 
not  sanctify  his  means  by  his  end,  because  the  end  in 
that  case  is  not  sanctified,  or  only  nominally  so,  only 
in  general,  but  not  in  the  concrete  case  quoted.  For 
charity  is  an  end  of  but  inferior  holiness  which  must 
not  be  more  than  a  means  compared  to  the  main  end 
of  maintaining  bourgeois  society,  and  whenever  it 
contravenes  this  main  purpose,  charity  loses  its  char- 
acter of  a  good  end.  And  we  have  already  seen  that 
an  end  which  is  sanctified  only  under  certain  circum- 
stances cannot  sanctify  its  means  beyond  them.  The 
indispensable  condition  of  all  good  ends  is  that  they 
must  be  subservient  to  human  welfare,  and  whether 
this  welfare  is  secured  by  Christian  or  pagan,  by 
feudal  or  bourgeois  means,  it  always  demands  that  the 
things  which  are  considered  unessential  and  of  lesser 
importance  should  be  subordinated  to  the  essential 
and  necessary  things,  while  in  the  above  quoted  cases 
the  more  salutary  honesty  and  bourgeois  respecta- 
bility would  be  sacrificed  to  the  less  salutarv   charitv. 


''PR.VCTICAL  reason"  OR  MORALITY 


1G3 


"The  end  sanctifies    the    means"    signifies     in    other 
words  that  in  ethics  as  well  as  in  economics,  the  profit 
must  justify  the  investment  of  the  capital.     Again,  if 
we  call  the  forcible  conversion  of  infidels  a  good  end,  and 
an  arbitrary  police  measure  a  bad  means,  this  does  not 
prove  anything  against  the  truth  of  the  maxim,  but 
only  testifies  to  its  wrong  application.    The  means  is 
not  sanctified  in  the  case,  because  the  end  is  not,  be- 
cause a  forced  conversion  is  not  a  good  end,  but  rather 
an  evil  one  resulting  in  hypocrisy,  and  because  such 
a  conversion  does  not  deserve  this  name,  or  because 
force  is  a  means  which  is  unworthy  of  this  term.     If 
it  is  true  that  a  forcible  conversion  or  wooden  iron 
are   senseless   ideas,   how   is   it   that  people   will  persist 
in  fighting  against  universally  recognized  truths  with 
such  inconsistencies,    such  inane    word    plays,    such 
tricks  of  rhetoric  and  sophistry?     The  means  of  the 
Jesuits,  sly  tricks  and  intrigues,  poison  and  murder, 
appear  unholy  to  us  only  because  the  Jesuitic  purpose, 
for  instance  that  of  extending  the  wealth  and  influ- 
ence and  glorifying  pow^r  of  the  order,  is  an  inferior 
end  which  may  make  use  of  the  innocent  language  of 
the  pulpit,  but  is  not  an  absolutely  sanctified  end,  no 
supreme  end,  to  which  we  would  grant  means  that 
would  deprive  us  of  some  essential  end,  for  instance  of 
our  personal   and   public  safety.     Murder  and   man- 
slaughter are  considered  immoral  as  individual  actions 
because  they  a*-e  not  means  to  accomplish  our  main 
end,  because  we  incline  not  toward  revenge  or  blood- 
thirstiness,   nor   toward  arbitrariness  and   the   wilful 
dispensation   of  justice   by  some  judge,  but   tow^ard 
lawful  decisions  and  the  more  or  less  impartial  decrees 
of  the  state.    But  do  we  not  explicitly  declare  in  favor 


164 


THE   NATURE  OF   HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


of  the  maxim  "The  end  sanctifies  the  means,"  when 
we  constitute  ourselves  into  juries  and  render  dan- 
gerous crin  inals  powerless  by  the  rope  and  the  ax  of 
the  executioner? 

The  same  people  who  boast  of  having  dropped 
Aristotle,  that  is  to  say  the  belief  in  authority,  for 
centuries,  and  who  therefore  replaced  the  dead  tradi- 
tional truth  by  living  self-gained  truth,  are  found 
to  be  completely  at  odds  with  their  owm  development 
in  the  above  cited  cases.  If  we  listen  to  the  recital  of 
some  funny  story,  which  may  be  told  by  even  a  relia- 
ble witness,  we  nevertheless  remain  loyal  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  free  reason,  that  is  to  say  we  are  free  to  re- 
gard as  serious  and  regrettable  any  incident  which  the 
narrator  may  consider  funny  and  ridiculous.  People 
know  how  to  distinguish  between  a  story  and  the  sub- 
jective impression  its  incidents  created  on  the  mind 
of  the  narrator,  and  which  depends  more  on  the  per- 
sonality of  the  witness  than  on  the  actual  facts.  But 
in  the  matter  of  good  ends  and  bad  means  it  is  pro- 
posed to  neglect  the  distinction  betwen  an  object  and 
its  subjective  end  w^hich  is  otherwise  the  point  of  all 
critique.  Such  ends  as  charity,  the  conversion  of  infi- 
dels, etc.,  are  thoughtlessly,  a  priori,  called  good  and 
holy,  because  they  once  were  so  under  particular  con- 
ditions, while  now  their  effect  in  the  cases  above  cited 
is  just  the  opposite,  and  then  people  wonder  that  the 
unrighteous  title  carries  with  it  unrighteous  priv- 
ileges. 

Only  that  end  is  w^orthy  of  the  predicate  good  or 
holy  in  practice  which  is  itself  a  means,  a  servant,  of 
the  end  of  all  purposes,  of  welfare.  Whenever  man 
seeks  his  welfare  in  bourgeois  life,  in  production  and 


"practical  reason''  or  morality 


165 


commerce  of  commodities,  and  in  the  undisturbed  en- 
joyment of  his  private  property,  he  clips  his  long  fingers 
by  the  commandment:  *Thou  shalt  not  steal."  But 
wherever,  as  among  the  Spartans,  war  is  regarded  as 
the  supreme  end  and  craftiness  as  a  necessary  quality 
of  a  warrior,  there  thieving  is  used  as  a  means  of 
acquiring  craftiness  and  sanctioned  as  a  means  for  the 
main  end.  To  blame  the  Spartan  for  being  a  warrior 
instead  of  a  sedate  bourgeois  would  be  to  ignore  the 
facts  of  reality,  would  be  equivalent  to  overlooking 
that  our  brain  is  not  designed  to  substitute  imaginary 
pictures  for  the  actual  conditions  of  the  world,  but  is 
organized  to  understand  that  a  period,  a  nation,  an 
individual  is  ahvays  that  which  it  can  and  must  be 
under  given  circumstances. 

It  is  not  from  mere  individual  and  unpraiseworthy 
fondness  for  the  paradox  that  w^e  subvert  current 
views  by  defending  the  maxim  "The  end  sanctifies  the 
means,"  but  from  a  consistent  application  of  the 
science  of  philosophy.  Philosophy  originated  out  of 
the  belief  in  a  dualist  contrast  between  God  and  the 
world,  between  body  and  soul,  between  the  flesh  and 
the  spirit,  between  brain  and  senses,  between  thinking 
and  being,  between  the  general  and  the  concrete.  The 
conciliation  of  this  contrast  represents  the  end,  or  the 
aggregate  result,  of  philosophical  research.  Philos- 
ophy found  its  dissolution  in  the  understanding  that 
the  divine  is  worldly  and  the  worldly  divine,  that  the 
soul  is  related  to  the  body,  the  spirit  to  the  flesh, 
thinking  to  being,  the  intellect  to  the  senses,  in  the 
same  way  in  which  the  unity  is  related  to  the  multi- 
plicity or  the  general  to  the  concrete.  Philosophy 
began  with  the  erroneous  supposition  that  the  one,  as 


16G 


THE   NATURE   OF   HUMAN  BRAIN    WORK 


the  first  thing,  was  the  basis  on  which  developed  the 
two,  three,  four,  and  the  entire  multiplicity  of  things 
by  succession.  It  has  now  arrived  at  the  understand- 
ing that  truth,  or  reality,  turns  this  supposition  upside 
down,  that  the  reality  with  its  multiplicity  of  forms, 
perceivable  by  the  senses,  is  the  first  and  foremost 
thing  out  of  which  the  human  brain  gradually  derived 
the  conception  of  unity  or  generality. 

No  achievement  of  science  can  be  compared  with 
the  amount  of  talent  and  intellectual  energy  con- 
sumed in  harvesting  this  one  little  fruit  from  the  field  of 
speculative  philosophy.  But  neither  does  any  scientific 
novelty  encounter  so  many  deep-rooted  obstacles  to  its 
recognition.  All  brains  unfamiliar  with  the  outcome  of 
philosophy  are  dominated  by  the  old  belief  in  the  reality  of 
some  genuine,  true,  absolutely  universal  panacea,  the  dis- 
covery of  which  would  make  all  sham,  false  individual 
panaceas  impossible.  But  we,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
been  taught  by  the  understanding  of  the  thought 
process  that  this  coveted  panacea  is  a  product  of  the 
brain  and  that,  since  it  is  supposed  to  be  a  general  and 
abstract  panacea,  it  cannot  be  any  real,  perceptible, 
concrete  panacea.  In  the  belief  in  an  absolute  difference 
between  true  and  false  welfare,  there  is  manifested 
an  ignorance  of  the  actual  operations  of  brain  work. 
Pythagoras  made  numbers  the  basis  of  things.  If  this 
Grecian  philosopher  could  have  realized  that  this 
basic  nature  was  a  thing  of  the  mind,  of  the  intellect,* 
and  that  numbers  were  the  basis  of  reason,  the  com- 
mon or  abstract  content  of  all  intellectual  activity, 
then  we  should  have    been    spared    all    the    disputes 

♦Which  was  gained  by  the  mind's   contact  with   its  sense-perceived 
multiplicity  of  the  world.— Editor. 


rKACTiCAL  REASON     OR  MORALITY 


107 


which  have  raged  around  the  various  forms  of  abso- 
lute truth,  about  "things  in  themselves." 

Space  and  time  are  the  general  forms  of  reality, 
or  reality  exists  in  time  and  space.  Consequently  all 
real  welfare  must  be  attached  to  space  and  time,  and 
every  welfare  which  exists  in  these  dimensions  must 
be  real.  The  dififerent  w^elfares,  in  so  far  as  their 
beneficent  qualities  are  concerned,  are  to  be  distin- 
guished only  by  their  height  and  breadth,  by  the 
quantity  of  their  dimensions,  by  their  numeral  rela- 
tions. Every  welfare,  whether  true  or  seeming,  is 
perceived  by  the  senses,  by  practices  of  life,  not  by 
abstract  reason.  But  practice  assigns  the  most  con- 
tradictory things  to  different  people  at  different  times 
as  means  to  their  v/elfare.  What  is  welfare  in  one 
place,  is  disaster  in  another,  and  vice  versa.  Under- 
standing, or  reason,  has  nothing  else  to  do  in  the  mat- 
ter than  to  number  these  various  w^elfares  as  they  are 
made  real  by  sense  perceptions  in  various  persons  and 
times,  and  degrees  of  intensity,  in  the  order  in  which 
they  appear,  and  thus  to  distinguish  the  small  from 
the  great,  the  essential  from  the  unessential,  the  con- 
crete from  the  general.  Reason  cannot  dictate  to  us 
autocratically  in  matters  of  some  absolutely  true  wel- 
fare, it  can  only  indicate  the  most  frequent,  most 
essential,  and  most  universal  welfare  in  a  certain  per- 
ceived number  of  welfares.  But  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  the  truth  of  such  an  understanding,  or 
enumeration,  depends  on  certain  definite  premises. 
It  is  therefore  a  vain  endeavor  to  search  for  the  true 
and  absolute  welfare.  This  search  becomes  practical 
and  successful  only  when  it  limits  itself  to  the  under- 
standing of  a  definite  amount  of  welfare  of  some  par- 


1G8 


THE   NATURE   OF    HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


ticiilar  objects.  The  general  welfare  can  be  found 
only  within  definite  boundaries.  But  the  various  de- 
terminations of  welfare  agree  in  this  respect,  that  they 
all  consider  it  well  to  sacrifice  the  little  for  the  great, 
the  unessential  for  the  essential,  and  not  vice  versa. 
In  so  far  as  this  principle  is  right,  it  is  also  right  for 
us  to  employ  for  the  good  end  of  a  great  welfare  some 
small  means  in  the  shape  of  a  small  evil  and  to  endure 
it,  and  thus  we  see  once  more  that  the  end  sanctifies 
the  means. 

If  people  were  liberal  enough  to  permit  every  one 
to  go  to  heaven  in  his  or  her  own  way,  the  opponents 
of  our  maxim  would  be  easily  convinced  of  its  truth. 
But  instead  of  doing  this,  people  follow  the  usual 
course  of  shortsightedness  and  make  their  private 
standpoint  a  universal  one.  They  call  their  own  pri- 
vate welfare  the  only  true  welfare,  and  regard  the  wel- 
fare of  other  nations,  times  and  cond'itions  a  mistake. 
So  does  every  school  of  art  declare  its  own  subjective 
taste  to  be  objective  beauty,  ignoring  the  fact  that 
unity  is  but  a  matter  of  ideas,  of  thought,  while  reality 
is  full  of  the  most  varied  forms.  The  real  welfare  is 
manifold  and  the  true  welfare  but  a  subjective  choice 
which,  like  a  funny  story,  may  make  an  entirely  differ- 
ent impression  on  others,  and  be  a  false  welfare.  Even 
though  Kant,  or  Fichte,  or  some  other  particular  phil- 
osopher, may  discuss  at  length  the  purpose  of  man- 
kind and  solve  the  problem  to  his  full  satisfaction  and 
to  that  of  his  audience,  we  nevertheless  have  learned 
enough  today  to  know  that  one  can  define  one's  own 
personal  idea  of  the  purpose  of  mankind  by  means  of 
abstract  speculation,  but  that  one  cannot  discover  any 
unknown  and  hidden  object  in  this  way.    Thought,  or 


'^PRACTICAL  reason''  OR  MORALITY 


169 


reason,  requires  some  object,  and  its  work  is  that  of 
measuring,  of  criticising.  It  may  distinguish  between 
true  and  false  welfare,  but  will  also  remember  that 
they  have  their  limits,  remember  that  it  is  itself  per- 
sonal and  that  its  distinctions  are  likewise  personal 
and  cannot  be  generalized  beyond  the  point  where 
others  receive  the  same  impression  of  the  same  object. 

Humanity  is  an  idea,  while  man  is  always  some 
special  person  who  has  his  or  her  peculiar  life  in  a 
definite  environment  and  is  therefore  subservient  to 
general  principles  only  from  motives  of  self-interest. 
The  sacrifice  of  ethics,  like  that  of  religion,  is  only 
seemingly  a  self-denial  and  serves  the  ends  of  reason- 
able self-interest,  an  expenditure  with  a  view  to 
greater  gains.  A  morality  worthy  of  that  name  which 
is  not  better  defined  by  the  term  obedience  can  be 
exercised  only  through  the  understanding  of  its 
worth,  of  its  value  for  our  welfare,  of  its  usefulness. 
The  variety  of  political  parties  is  conditioned  on  the 
varieties  of  the  interests  concerned,  and  the  difference 
in  the  means  is  conditioned  on  the  difference  in  ends. 
In  questions  of  less  importance  even  the  champions 
of  absolute  morality  testify  to  this  fact. 

Thiers  in  his  historv  of  the  French  Revolution  tells 

r' 

of  a  peculiar  situation  in  the  year  1796,  wdien  the 
patriots  held  the  public  powder  and  the  royalists  car- 
ried on  a  revolutionary  propaganda.  It  was  then  that 
the  partisans  of  the  revolution,  who  should  have  been 
the  champions  of  unlimited  liberty,  demanded  coercive 
measures,  wdiile  the  opposition,  who  secretly  cared 
more  for  a  monarchy  than  for  a  republic,  voted  for 
unlimited  liberty.  "To  such  an  extent  are  parties 
governed  by   their   self-interests,"   comments   Thiers, 


170 


THE   NATURE  OF   HUMAN   BILVIN    WORK 


just  as  if  this  were  an  anomaly  instead  of  being  the 
natural,  necessary  and  inevitable  course  of  the  world. 
When,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  question  of  the  funda- 
mental laws  of  bourgeois  order,  then  the  moral  repre- 
sentatives of  the  ruling  classes  are  egotistic  enough  to 
deny  the  connection  of  their  material  interests  with 
these  laws  and  to  claim  that  theirs  are  eternal,  meta- 
physical world  laws,  that  the  pillars  of  their  special 
class  rule  are  the  eternal  pillars  of  humanity,  and  that 
their  own  means  alone  are  holy  ones  and  their  end  the 
final  end  of  the  universe. 

It  is  a  disastrous  deception,  a  robbing  of  human 
liberty,  an  attempt  to  cause  the  stagnation  of  the  his- 
torical development,  if  any  age  or  class  thus  proclaims 
its  own  peculiar  purposes  and  means  to  be  for  the 
absolute  welfare  of  humanity.  Morality  originally  re- 
flects one's  interests  just  as  fashion  reflects  one's  taste, 
and  finally  the  action  is  moulded  after  the  conceived 
pattern  like  the  coat  in  dressing.  In  this  process,  force 
naturally  is  exerted  for  the  maintenance  and  protec- 
tion of  one's  own  life  and  those  who  resist  are  sub- 
dued. Interest  and  duty,  though  perhaps  not  entirely 
synonymous,  are  certainly  closely  related.  Both  of 
them  are  merged  in  the  term  welfare.  Self-interest 
represents  more  nearly  the  concrete,  immediate,  tan- 
gible welfare,  while  duty  concerns  itself  with  the  more 
remote  and  general  welfare  of  the  future  also.  While 
self-interest  considers  the  present  tangible  metallic 
welfare  of  the  purse,  duty  demands  that  we  keep  not 
only  a  part  of  welfare,  but  all  welfare  in  mind,  that 
we  consider  the  future  as  well  as  the  present,  that  we 
remember  the  spiritual  welfare  as  well  as  the  physical. 
Duty  thinks  also  of  the  heart,  of  social  needs,  of  the 


^'practical  reason''  or  morality 


171 


future,  of  the  spiritual  weal,  in  brief  of  interest  in  gen- 
eral and  urges  us  to  renounce  the  superfluous  in  order 
to  secure  and  retain  the  necessary.  Thus  your  duty  is 
your  self-interest  and  your  self-interest  your  duty. 

If  our  ideas  are  to  adapt  themselves  to  truth,  or  to 
reality,  instead  of  reality  or  truth  adapting  itself  to 
our  notions  or  thoughts,  we  must  understand  that  the 
mutability  of  that  which  is  right,  holy,  moral,  is  a 
natural,  necessary  and  true  fact.  And  we  must  grant 
to  an  individual  the  theoretical  freedom  which  can- 
not be  taken  from  it  in  practice,  we  must  admit  that 
it  is  as  free  now  as  it  has  ever  been,  that  laws  must 
be  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  social  individual  and 
not  to  the  vague,  unreal,  and  impossible  abstractions, 
such  as  justice  or  morality.  What  is  justice?  The 
embodiment  of  all  that  is  considered  right,  an  indi- 
vidual conception,  which  assumes  different  forms  in 
different  persons.  In  reality  only  individual,  definite, 
concrete  rights  exist,  and  man  simply  comes  along 
and  abstracts  from  them  the  idea  of  justice,  just  as  he 
abstracted  from  different  kinds  of  wood  the  concep- 
tion of  wood  in  general,  or  from  material  things  the 
conception  of  matter.  It  is  just  as  far  from  the  truth, 
to  think  that2  material  things  consist  of,  or  are  by 
virtue  of,  abstract  matter,  although  this  view  is  widely 
spread,  as  it  is  to  believe  that  the  moral  or  bourgeois 
laws  were  derived  from  the  idea  of  justice. 

The  ethical  loss  caused  by  our  realistic,  or  if  you 
prefer,  materialistic,  conception  of  morality  is  not  so 
great  as  it  appears.  We  need  not  fear  that  through 
this  conception  social  beings  will  become  lawless  can- 
nibals or  hermits.  Freedom  and  lawfulness  are 
closely  allied  by  the  need  for  association  which  com- 


in 


THE    VALUE   OF    HUMAN    BRAIN    WORK 


pels  US  to  permit  others  to  live  together  v^ith  us.  If 
a  man  is  prevented  by  his  conscience  or  by  other  spir- 
itualistic or  bourgeois  ethics  from  committing  unlaw- 
ful actions — unlawful  in  the  wider  meaning  of  the 
term — he  is  either  not  exposed  to  very  grave  tempta- 
tions, or  he  has  a  nature  so  tame  that  the  natural  or 
legal  punishments  fully  suffice  to  keep  him  within  pre- 
scribed bounds.  But  where  these  checks  are  ineffec- 
tive, morality  is  likewise  powerless.  If  it  were  other- 
wise, we  should  have  to  assume  that  morality  exerts 
in  secret  the  same  influence  on  the  faithful  which  is 
exerted  by  public  opinion  on  the  faithless.  But  we 
know  from  actual  experience  that  there  are  more  pious 
thieves  than  infidel  robbers.  That  the  world,  which 
attributes  so  much  value  for  social  welfare  to  morality 
by  word  of  mouth,  actually  shares  this  view  of  ours, 
is  proven  by  the  fact  that  bourgeois  society  gives  more 
attention  to  the  penal  code  and  to  the  police  than  to 
the  influence  of  morality. 

Moreover,  our  fight  is  not  directed  against  mor- 
ality, not  even  against  any  special  form  of  it,  but  only 
against  the  arrogance  which  assumes  to  stamp  some 
concrete  form  of  morality  with  the  trade  mark  of 
absolute  morality.  We  recognize  that  morality  is 
eternally  sacred,  in  so  far  as  it  refers  to  considerations 
which  a  man  owes  to  himself  and  to  his  fellowmen  in 
the  interest  of  their  common  welfare.  But  the  free- 
dom of  the  individual  demands  that  each  one  should 
be  at  liberty  to  determine  the  degree  of  consideration 
and  the  manner  of  giving  it  expression.  Under  these 
circumstances  it  is  as  inevitable  that  the  ruling  pow- 
ers, classes  or  majorities  should  enforce  their  special 
needs  under  the  form  of  a  prescribed  right,  as  it  is  that 


''PRACTICAL  BEASON"  OR  MORALITY 


173 


a  man's  shirt  should  be  closer  to  his  skin  than  his  coat. 
But  it  appears  to  us  not  merely  very  superfluous,  but 
even  detrimental  to  the  energies  required  for  the  prog- 
ress of  the  future,  that  s.  >  ne  decreed  right  should  be 
elevated  to  the  position  of  absolute  right  and  trans- 
formed into  an  insuperable  barrier  to  the  advance  of 
humanity. 


.' 


Letters  on  Logic 

Especially  Democratic-Proletarian  Logic 

BY  JOSEPH    DIETZGEN 
Translated  by  Ernest  Untermann 


Editorial  Remark. 

The  ''Letters  on  Logic,"  treating  on  the  same  sub- 
jects as  "The  Positive  Outcome  of  Philosophy,"  were 
intended  by  the  author  to  be  replaced  by  this  subse- 
quent work. 

We  publish,  however,  both  these  works  in  hopes 
that  the  reader  will  pardon  the  frequent  repetitions  on 
account  of  the  additional  light  that  other  parts  of  the 
"Letters  on  Logic"  are  apt  to  impart. 


LETTERS  ON    LOGIC 

FIRST  LETTER 

Dear  Eugene: 

You  have  now  reached  the  age  at  which  the  stu- 
dents go  to  the  university.  There,  according  to  cus- 
tom, they  register  first  of  all  for  a  course  in  logic, 
whether  they  choose  the  study  of  law,  medicine,  or 
theology.  Logic  is,  so  to  say,  the  elementary  study  in 
all  branches  of  learning.  Now  you  know,  my  dear, 
that  school  and  life  are  regarded  as  two  separate 
things.  I  should  like  to  call  your  attention  to  their 
connection.  We  live  also  in  school,  we  are  schooled 
also  by  life.  I  should  like  to  consider  your  trip  across 
the  Atlantic  ocean  as  your  first  venture  in  the  high 
school  of  life,  and  assume  the  role  of  your  professor 
of  logic. 

I  feel  well  qualified  for  this  office.  Although  I  am 
not  well  up  in  Latin  and  Greek,  still  I  feel  competent 
to  guide  you  to  the  depths  of  logical  science  better 
than  a  German  professor  trained  and  installed  accord- 
ing to  the  most  approved  pattern.  You  will  admit  the 
possibility  of  such  a  thing.  For  one  who  knows  little 
may  explain  that  little  with  more  ease  and  efficac}' 
than  one  who  has  his  head  stuffed  full  of  the  pre- 
scribed bunch  of  official  wisdom. 

You,  my  son,  have  been  so  fortunate  as  to  enjoy 
a  seven  years'  course  in  a  German  college.    And  smce 

177 


^ 


178 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


your  teachers,  at  your  departure,  gave  you  the  highest 
certificate,  I  may  well  consider  you  as  qualified  not 
only  to  enter  the  school  of  life  in  the  United  States, 
but  also  to  listen  intelligently  to  my  lectures  on  logic. 

But  in  order  that  my  well  trained  pupil  may  not 
look  down  upon  his  self-taught  teacher,  I  appeal  to 
the  fact  that  even  the  man  with  the  best  all-around 
education  will  be  a  tyro  in  specialties ;  and  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  ignorance  in  many  things  does  not  ex- 
clude the  possibility  of  knowing  more  about  a  certain 
specialty  than  science  has  heretofore  grasped.  Now 
I  claim  in  this  case  to  have  acquired  a  knowledge  of 
the  subject  with  which  I  intend  to  deal  here  that  sur- 
passes anything  I  have  been  able  to  find  in  the  pro- 
fessional literature.  I  mention  this,  my  dear  Eugene, 
with  all  due  modesty,  not  for  the  purpose  of  throwing 
a  halo  around  my  personality,  but  in  order  to  give  a 
certain  authority  to  my  office  as  teacher  and  to  inspire 
my  pupil  with  confidence. 

Yes,  I  value  confidence.  Although  you  know  n;e 
as  a  democrat  who  cares  nothing  for  authority,  you 
shall  also  learn  to  know  me  as  a  graduate  in  dialectics 
who,  though  he  may  empty  the  bath,  still  retains  his 
hold  on  the  child  and  does  not  permit  it  to  float  ofif 
with  the  water.  Children,  and  one  may  say  nations  in 
their  childhood,  cannot  do  without  authority,  and  a 
teacher,  whether  he  instruct  children  or  nations,  can- 
not dispense  with  a  certain  confidence-inspiring  air. 
The  pupil  must  believe  in  the  wisdom  of  his  teacher, 
in  order  that  he  may  approach  the  master  with  the 
necessary  attention  and  willingness  to  learn.  Later 
on  the  understanding  of  the  subject  makes  all  author- 
ity superfluous.     Thus  a  thing  so  sublime  as  author- 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


179 


ity  is  subject  to  the  destructive  tendencies  of  time,  to 
the  historical  process. 

Hitherto  mankind  has  often  been  tempted  by  pre- 
conceived notions  to  idolize  vain  things.  It  has  been 
attempted  to  shield  not  only  authority  in  general,  but, 
what  is  still  worse,  this  or  that  throne  or  altar,  against 
the  attacks  of  time.  The  relation  between  the  perish- 
able and  the  imperishable  has  always  been  subject  to 
much  misunderstanding.  Now  since  logic  is  that 
science  which  aims  to  set  the  intellect  aright,  we  shall 
have  to  touch  occasionally  on  the  general  misconcep- 
tion of  time  and  eternity. 

The  most  famous  expounders  of  logic  are  re- 
proached for  their  cumbrous  style  and  their  obscure 
mode  of  explanation.  Even  masters  of  languages 
have  complained  in  my  hearing  about  the  foreign 
terms  used  by  that  branch  of  science,  terms  which 
even  they  could  not  understand.  INIuch  of  the  blame 
for  this  condition  of  things  may  fall  on  the  difficulties 
of  the  subject,  which  have  baffled  all  elucidation  for 
thousands  of  years.  Some  of  the  blame  also  falls  on 
the  bad  habit  of  using  learned  vernacular.  But  the 
greatest  fault  lies  with  the  mental  laziness  of  the  stu- 
dents. Nothing  can  be  learned  w^ithout  mental  exer- 
tion. If  you  are  concerned  in  your  further  develop- 
ment, you  will  recognize  the  Christian  word  as  to  the 
curse  of  work  as  untrue.  Work  cannot  be  descended 
from  sin,  for  it  is  a  blessing.  You  will  have  experi- 
enced in  yourself  how  elated  one  feels  after  successful 
physical  or  mental  work. 

The  things  which  science  yields  without  exertion 
can  be  at  most  axiomatic  commonplaces. 

I  assume  that  you  are  quite  willing  to  perform  the 


180 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


necessary  mental  labor,  and  I  promise  you  that  I  shall 
do  my  best  to  make  this  study  easy  for  you.  I  do  this 
so  much  more  readily,  as  I  frankly  confess  that  these 
letters  to  my  son  are  written  with  the  intention  of 
making  them  accessible  to  a  wider  circle  of  readers  by 
means  of  the  press. 

Before  concluding,  let  me  say  a  word  about  my 
aim  of  speaking  especially  of  democratic-proletarian 
logic.  You  will  think  or  say :  Logic  may  be  a  subject 
worthy  of  study,  but  a  special  democratic-proletarian 
logic  can  surely  treat  of  nothing  but  party  matters. 
But  just  as  the  special  accomplishments  in  this  or 
that  line,  the  special  advances  of  this  or  that  nation, 
are  at  the  same  time  general  advances,  progress  of 
civilization,  so  the  ideas  of  proletarian  logic  are  not 
party  ideas,  but  conclusions  of  logic  in  general.  You 
may  reply:  Even  though  the  special  thought  of  a 
Chinaman  may  be  quite  consistent  and  logical,  still  we 
would  not  call  it  Chinese  logic.  That  would  be  quite 
true,  but  it  does  not  meet  my  point. 

The  thought  on  which  the  proletarian  demands  are 
based,  the  idea  of  the  equality  of  all  human  beings, 
this  ultimate  proletarian  idea,  if  I  may  say  so,  is  fully 
backed  up  by  the  deeper  insight  into  the  tortuous 
problem  of  logic.  Xow,  since  this  idea  dominates 
mankind,  it  certainly  has  more  right  than  any  Chinese 
idea.  Furthermore,  industrial  development  has  lev- 
eled, simplified,  cleared  all  social  conditions  to  such  an 
extent  that  it  becomes  ever  easier  to  penetrate  with 
sober  eyes  into  the  secrets  of  logic.  Finally,  my  logic 
deserves  its  proletarian  qualification  for  the  reason 
that  it  requires  for  its  understanding  the  overcoming 


LETTERS  ox  LOGIC 


181 


of  all  prejudices  by  which  the  capitalist  world  is  held 
together. 

The  cause  of  the  people  is  not  a  party  matter,  but 
the  general  object  of  all  science. 

The  people's  cause  as  the  ultimate  object,  and  logic 
as  the  most  elementary  and  most  abstract  science,  as 
ultimate  science,  are  as  intimately  connected  as  plants 
and  botany,  or  as  laws  and  the  legal  profession.  So 
are  the  interests  of  democracy  and  the  proletariat  in- 
timately connected.  The  fact  that  this  has  not  been 
well  recognized  in  the  United  States  so  far,  is  more  a 
proof  of  the  lucky  condition  of  that  country  than  of 
the  scientific  knowledge  of  its  democracy.  The 
spreading  primeval  forests  and  prairies  offered  in- 
numerable homesteads  to  the  poor  and  they  obscured 
the  antagonism  between  capitalists  and  wage  workers,  be- 
tween capitalist  and  proletarian  democracy.  But  you 
still  lack  the  knowledge  of  proletarian  economics  which 
would  enable  you  to  recognize  without  a  doubt  that 
it  is  precisely  on  the  republican  ground  of  America 
that  capitalism  makes  giant  strides  and  reveals  ever 
more  clearly  its  twofold  task  of  first  enslaving  the 
people  for  the  purpose  of  freeing  them  in  due  time. 


SECOND    LETTER 

Dear  Eugene: 

Having  written  the  first  letter  by  way  of  introduc- 
tion. I  now  am  ready  for  a  gradual  approach  to  my 
subject. 

Logic  aims  to  instruct  the  human  mind  as  to  its 
own  nature  and  processes ;  it  will  lay  bare  the  interior 
working  of  our  mind  for  our  guidance.    The  object  of 


182 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


the  study  of  logic  is  thought,  its  nature,  and  its  proper 
classification. 

The  human  brain  performs  the  function  of  think- 
ing as  involuntarily  as  the  chest  the  function  of 
breathing.  However,  v^e  can,  by  our  will,  stop  breath- 
ing for  a  while,  and  accelerate  or  retard  the  breathing 
movements.  In  the  same  way,  the  will  can  control 
the  thoughts.  We  may  choose  any  object  as  the  sub- 
ject matter  of  our  thought,  and  yet  we  may  quickly 
convince  ourselves  that  the  power  of  our  will  and  the 
freedom  of  the  mind  are  not  any  greater  than  the  free- 
dom of  the  chest  in  breathing. 

While  logic  undertakes  to  assign  the  proper  posi- 
tion to  our  brain,  still  it  has  to  remember  that  nature 
has  already  assigned  that  position. 

It  is  with  logic  as  it  is  with  other  sciences.  They 
draw  wisdom  from  the  mysterious  source  of  plain  ex- 
perience. Agriculture,  e.  g.,  aims  to  teach  the  farmer 
how  to  cultivate  the  soil;  but  fields  were  tilled  long 
before  any  agricultural  college  had  begun  its  lectures. 
In  the  same  way  human  beings  think  without  ever 
having  heard  of  logic.  But  by  practice  they  improve 
their  innate  faculty  of  thought,  they  make  progress, 
they  gradually  learn  to  make  better  use  of  it.  Finally, 
just  as  the  farmer  arrives  at  the  science  of  agriculture, 
so  the  thinker  arrives  at  logic,  acquires  a  clear  con- 
sciousness of  his  faculty  of  thought  and  a  professional 
dexterity  in  applying  it. 

I  have  two  purposes  in  mind  in  saying  this. 
Firstly,  you  must  not  expect  too  mucli  from  this 
science,  for  you  cannot  set  contrary  brains  to  rights 
by  any  logic.  Secondly,  you  must  not  think  too  little 
of  it,  by  regarding  the  matter  as  mere  scholastic  word- 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


183 


mongery  and  useless  hairsplitting.  In  daily  life,  as 
well  as  in  all  sciences,  we  never  operate  without  the 
help  of  thought,  but  only  with  it,  hence  an  under- 
standing of  the  nature  of  the  processes  of  thought  is 
of  eminent  value. 

Logic  has  its  history  like  all  sciences.  Aristotle, 
whom  Marx  calls  the  "Grecian  giant  of  thought,"  is 
universally  recognized  as  its  founder. 

After  the  classic  culture  of  antiquity  had  been 
buried  by  barbarism,  the  name  of  Bacon  of  Verulam 
rose  with  the  beginning  of  modern  times  as  a  philo- 
sophical light  of  the  first  order.  His  most  famous 
work  is  entitled  ''Novum  Organon."  By  the  new 
organ  he  meant  a  new  method  of  research  which 
should  be  founded  on  experience,  instead  of  the  sub- 
tleties of  the  purely  introspective  method  hitherto  in 
vogue.  After  him,  Descartes,  or  Cartesius,  as  he 
called  himself  in  literature,  wrote  his  still  famous 
work,  "About  Methods."  I  furthermore  recall  Im- 
manuel  -Kant's  "Critique  of  Reason,"  Johann  Gottlieb 
Fichte's  "Theory  of  Science,"  and  finally  Hegel,  of 
whom  the  biographer  said  that  he  was  as  famous  in 
the  scientific  world  as  Napoleon  in  the  political. 

Hegel  calls  his  chief  work  "Logic,"  and  bases  his  whole 
system  on  the  "dialectic  method."  You  have  only  to 
look  at  the  titles  of  these  philosophical  masterpieces 
in  order  to  recognize  that  they  all  treat  of  the  same 
subject  v/hich  we  are  making  our  special  study,  viz., 
the  light  of  understanding.  The  great  philosophers  of 
all  times  have  searched  for  the  true  method,  the 
method  of  truth,  for  the  way  in  which  understanding 
and  reason  arrive  at  science. 

I  merely  wish  to  indicate  that  this  subject  has  its 


184 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


185 


famous  history,  but  I  do  not  care  to  enter  more  deeply 
into  it.  I  will  not  speak  of  the  oppression  and  perse- 
cution, which  was  inaugurated  by  religious  fanati- 
cism. I  will  not  enumerate  the  various  events  that  led 
to  a  greater  and  greater  light  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration. The  attempt  to  trace  this  history  would  en- 
tangle us  in  many  disputed  questions  and  errors 
which  would  only  increase  the  difficulties  of  this  study 
for  the  beginner. 

If  a  teacher  of  technology  were  to  instruct  you  on 
steam  engines  and,  to  explain  their  first  incomplete  in- 
vention, trace  their  further  development  historically 
from  improvement  to  improvement,  until  he  should 
arrive  at  the  height  of  perfection  attained  in  their 
present  day  construction,  he  would  also  be  advancing  on 
a  path,  but  on  a  tedious  one.  I  shall  endeavor 
to  show  my  subject  at  the  outset  in  the  very  clearest 
light  which  has  ever  been  thrown  on  it  by  the  help  of 
the  nations  of  all  times.  If  I  succeed  in  this,  it  will  be 
easy  in  the  future,  in  the  reading  of  any  author,  to 
separate  the  chafif  from  the  wheat. 

I  can  afford  to  dispense  with  quotations  and  proofs 
from  others  in  trying  to  make  my  case  and  demon- 
strating the  positive  product  of  social  culture,  for  we 
are  dealing  with  the  most  universal  and  omnipresent 
object, — one  which  enters  into  every  spoken  or  writ- 
ten sentence  with  its  own  body.  If  anybody  tells  of 
far  off  tim.es  or  wonderful  things,  he  must  quote  wit- 
nesses. Now,  much  of  what  I  have  to  say  for  my  case 
m.ay  sound  vv^onderful,  because  it  runs  counter  to  the 
popular  prejudice,  but  the  only  witness  required  to 
prove  the  truth  of  my  statements  is  the  clear  brain  of 
my  pupil,  who  has  only  to  examine  his  own  experience 


without  preconceived  notions,  in  order  to  find  proofs 
on  every  hand. 

It  is  surprising  in  the  first  place,  that  such  a  near 
at  hand  object  has  not  been  understood  long  ago  and 
that  so  much  still  remains  to  be  explained  and  to  be 
taught  after  thousands  of  years  of  study.  But  you 
know  that  just  as  the  small  things  are  often  great,  and 
great  things  small,  so  the  nearest  things  are  Qften 
hidden  and  the  hidden  things  nearest. 

I  promised  you  in  the  first  sentences  of  this  letter, 
dear  Eugene,  that  I  would  now  pass  from  introduction 
to  subject  matter.  But  since  I  have  really  continued 
to  move  around  the  outer  edge  of  the  subject  instead 
of  entering  into  its  midst,  you  might  become  im- 
patient, and  so  I  will  justify  my  method.  It  is  a  pecu- 
liarity of  this  subject  matter  that  it  exposes  me  to  this 
charge.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  thought  that  it  never 
stays  with  itself,  but  ahvays  digresses  to  other  things. 
The  thought  is  the  plank  to  which  T  should  stick,  but 
it  is  the  nature  of  this  plank  never  to  stick.  Thinking 
is  a  thing  full  of  contradictions,  a  dialectical  secret. 

Now  I  know  that  here  I  am  saying  something 
which  it  is  very  hard  for  you  to  understand.  But  look 
here,  has  it  not  always  been  so?  When  you  began 
declining  Latin  words  in  the  sixth  class,  you  were  un- 
able at  once  to  grasp  the  full  meaning  of  declension. 
You  knew  what  you  were  doing,  and  yet  you  did  not 
entirely  understand  it.  Only  after  penetrating  more 
deeply  into  the  construction  of  the  language  did  the 
meaning  and  purpose  of  the  beginning  become  clear 
to  you.  In  the  same  way,  you  now  must  try  to  digest 
as  much  as  you  can  of  what  I  say,  and  after  you  have 
gone    more   deeply    Into   this    matter,   you   will    fully 


m 


J 


f^ 


ii 


186 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


understand  me  from  beginning  to  end.  In  taking  les- 
sons from  an  author,  on  an  unknown  subject,  I  have 
always  followed  the  method  of  first  getting  a  super- 
ficial view  of  the  subject,  of  glancing  over  its  many 
pages  and  chapters,  in  order  to  return  to  the  begin- 
ning and  acquire  a  thorough  knowledge  by  repeated 
study.  With  the  growing  familiarity  with  the  subject 
the  ability  to  understand  it  grew,  and  at  the  conclu- 
sion the  thing  became  clear  to  me.  This  is  the  only 
correct  method  I  can  recommend  to  vou. 

In  conclusion  let  me  say  for  to-day  in  passing  that 
the  recommendation  of  the  correct  method  for  study- 
ing logic  is  not  only  an  introduction,  but,  as  I  have  al- 
ready said,  the  subject  matter  of  science  itself. 


THIRD  LETTER 


Dear  Eugene: 

My  task  of  teaching  logic  requires  two  things:  a 
logician  and  a  teacher. 

The  last  named  capacity  requires  that  I  should 
clothe  the  subject  in  an  attractive  way.  Permit  me, 
therefore,  to  combine  the  didactic  style  with  that  of  the 
story  teller,  and  to  relate  at  this  point  an  episode  from 
a  novel  of  Gustav  zu  Putlitz: 

The  organist  of  a  certain  village  is  lying  on  his 
deathbed.  His  last  strength  has  been  spent  on  the 
previous  day  in  playing  a  hymn,  and  after  its  conclu- 
sion he  was  carried  from  the  church  in  an  unconscious 
state.  He  had  played  his  masterpiece,  but  at  the  same 
time  his  last  piece.    A  despised  stage  girl  had  accom- 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


187 


panied  him-  with  a  voice  like  that  of  a  nightingale. 
But  neither  she  nor  the  organ  player  had  earned  any 
applause  from  the  stupid  villagers. 

The  old  man  looked  around  in  his  room,  his  eyes 
were  first  riveted  on  his  faithful  piano,  his  friend  and 
companion  through  life.  He  extended  his  hand,  but  it 
sank  down  exhausted.  He  had  not  had  the  inten- 
tion to  touch  the  piano  anyway.  It  was  only  like 
stretching  out  one's  hand  for  a  friend  far  away.  Then 
he  looked  through  the  window  trying  to  recollect 
what  time  of  the  day  it  was.  And  when  he  had  taken 
in  the  situation,  he  turned  to  the  girl  kneeling  at  his 

feet. 

"Poor  child,"  he  began,  "you  were  deeply  disap- 
pointed yesterday.  I  felt  very  much  hurt,  when  I  first 
heard  of  it,  but  after  that  everything  became  clear  to 
me  while  I  heard  the  music  all  night,  until  a  short 
while  ago.  Rejoice,  my  girl,  at  being  reviled,  for  it 
is  done  for  the  sake  of  that  sacred  music,  and  it  is  an 
ecstasy,  a  blessing,  to  be  martyred  for  one's  music  which 
is  well  worth  all  injuries.  I  did  not  fare  any  better  all 
my  life,  and  if  I  thank  God  for  all  the  good  he  has 
done  me  uritil  this  hour,  I  also  thank  him  first  and 
most  fervently  for  the  gift  of  music  which  he  bestowed 
on  the  world,  and  which  he  revealed  to  me  most  won- 
derfully in  my  most  painful  hours. 

"For  my  music  I  have  starved  and  suffered  all  my 
life,  and  my  gain  was  delicious,  my  reward  celestial 
for  this  poor  perishable  stake. 

"My  father  was  an  organist  in  a  little  town  of  East- 
ern Frisia.  His  father  had  held  the  same  position  in 
the  same  church,  and,  I  think,  so  did  the  father  of  his 
father  follow  music  for  a  profession.    Music  has  been 


188 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


189 


the  heirloom  of  our  family  for  generations.  True,  it 
was  the  only  heirloom,  but  I  have  cherished  it  and 
held  its  flag  aloft  all  my  life.  When  God  calls  me 
away,  I  shall  leave  nothing  behind  but  that  old  piano 
and  the  sheet  music  which  I  wrote  myself,  for  in  all 
other  respects  I  have  always  been  poor.  I  might  have 
done  differently,  and  my  wife  has  often  upbraided  me 
for  it,  but  she  does  not  understand  the  blessing  of 
music.  I  do  not  blame  her  for  that,  for  it  was  not  her 
fault  that  God  closed  her  ear  to  music  as  he  did  the 
ears  of  many  others.  Poor  people,  how  cold  and  dreary 
must  be  their  lives  when  music  does  not  scatter  blos- 
soms in  their  path  and  bathe  their  temples  in  light. 
But  there  will  come  a  time  when  their  ears  will  be 
opened,  and  God  will  compensate  them  in  heaven  for 
what  they  missed  here  below. 

**We  who  love  music  have  tasted  a  part  of  eternal 
bliss  here  below,  for  harmony  which  dissolves  all 
chords  is  eternal  life  and  its  wings  are  fanning  us  in 
this  terrestrial  life 

"Do  you  see,  I  know  it  well,  and  no  one  besides  me, 
how  it  is  when  the  soul  prepares  to  leave  the  perish- 
able body  and  enter  the  song  of  the  spheres — 

"You  do  not  understand  me,  my  girl,  but  do  not 
worry,  you  also  will  understand  some  day.  I  will  only 
tell  you  this  much,  and  it  shall  be  a  consolation  to  you 
when  the  world  treats  you  roughly  hereafter.  All  of 
us,  whether  rich  or  poor,  whether  reclining  on  soft 
silken  cushions  or  on  hard  straw,  all  of  us  enter  life 
with  the  celestial  melodies  in  our  hearts.  The  beating 
of  time  goes  with  us  as  long  as  we  are  breathing.  It 
is  the  beating  of  the  heart  in  our  breast.  We  may  seem 
to  lose  the  melody,  even  the  measured  step  of  time 


seems  to  become  confused  by  our  passion,  but  in 
the  blessed  hours  we  always  find  our  melody  anew, 
and  then  we  feel  at  home  in  the  path  of  our  life." 

Thus  the  old  organist  -/.olized  his  music. 

But  it  is  not  alone  the  harmony  of  music  which 
has  such  a  power  over  the  mind.  The  harmony  of  col- 
ors, every  art  and  science,  has  the  same  power.  Even 
the  most  common  craft,  and  the  most  prosaic  of  all 
prose,  the  chase  after  the  dollar,  may  take  possession 
of  a  man's  soul  and  prostrate  him  in  adoration  before 
its  idol.  True,  not  every  one  is  so  sentimentally  in- 
clined, and  even  the  sentimentalist  is  so  only  in  es- 
pecially sentimental  moments.  Furthermore  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  artists,  inventors,  and  explorers  are 
worshipping  the  most  worthy  and  most  adorable  ob- 
jects. And  I  admit  that  no  great  success  can  be  ac- 
complished without  putting  your  whole  soul  into  some 

great  aim. 

Nevertheless  you  should  know  that  anything  which 
may  take  possession  of  one's  soul  shares  its  sublimity 
with  all  other  things,  and  is  for  this  reason  at  the 
same  time  something  ordinary.  Without  such  a  dia- 
lectic clarification  of  our  consciousness  all  adoration 

is  idol  worship. 

The  actual  experience,  then,  that  anything  and 
everything  may  serve  as  an  idol  should  clearly  convince 
you  that  no  one  thing,  but  only  the  universe  is  the  true 
God,  is  truth  and  life. 

Now,  is  this  logic  or  is  it  theology? 

It  is  both.  At  closer  range  you  will  notice  that  all 
great  logi':ians  occupy  themselves  a  great  deal  with 
God  and  deity,  and  that  on  the  other  hand  all  honest 


t ; 


i 


190 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


theologians  are  trying  to  base  their  faith  on  some  logi- 
cal  order.    Logic  is  by  its  whole  nature  metaphysical.* 

There  exists  a  class  of  logicians  who  attempt  to 
deny  the  inevitable  connection  between  the  celestial 
region  and  the  tangible  universe.  Some  of  them  do  so 
from  excessive  religious  delicacy  of  feeling,  in  order 
to  protect  the  sublime  from  the  disintegrating  effects 
of  critique.  Others  have  such  an  antipathy  against 
the  religious  abuses  that  they  do  not  wish  to  hear  any 
more  about  religion.  Both  classes  adhere  to  the  so- 
called  formal  logic. 

These  adherents  of  formal  logic  may  be  compared 
to  a  maker  of  porcelain  dishes  who  would  contend 
that  he  was  simply  paying  attention  to  the  form  of  his 
dishes,  pots,  and  vases,  but  that  he  did  not  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  raw  material,  while  it  is  evident 
that  he  is  compelled  to  form  the  body  in  trying  to  em- 
body forms.  These  things  can  be  separated  by  words 
only,  but  not  by  actions.  In  the  same  way  as  body 
and  form,  the  finite  and  infinite  or  so-called  celestial 
spheres,  the  physical  and  the  metaphysical,  are  in- 
separable. 

Logic  analyzes  thought.  But  it  analyzes  thought 
as  it  is  in  reality,  and  therefore  it  unavoidably  searches 
for  truth.  And  whether  this  truth  is  found  above  or 
below,  or  anywhere,  is  a  question  which  just  as  inevit- 
ably brings  the  logician  into  contact  with  the  theo- 
logian. To  think  of  avoiding  such  a  meeting  from  con- 
siderations of  sympathy  or  antipathy,  would  be  a  rude 
lack  of  consideration  for  science. 

jMetaphysical  logic  which  aims  to  extend  its  field 

*In  the  sense  of:  mental  and  physical  world  embracing,  all- 
embracing. — Editor. 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


19: 


to  eternity,  which  looks  for  logical  order  even  in 
heaven,  and  seeks  to  solve  even  the  so-called  last  ques- 
tions of  all  knowledge,  differs  in  a  distinct  way  from  for- 
mal logic,  which  selects  a  restricted  field  for  its  research 
and  confines  itself  to  investigating  the  logical  order  of 
the  socalled  physical  world.  This  difference  is  worthy  of 
your  special  attention,  because  in  it  there  is  hidden  the 
kernel  of  our  whole  correspondence. 

It  is  quite  a  practical  method  to  set  a  limit  for  one's 
investigations,  not  to  fly  into  clouds,  not  to  undertake 
anything  that  cannot  be  accomplished.  Yet  you  must 
not  forget  that  practical  boundaries  are  not  theoretical 
boundaries,  that  they  are  not  invariable  boundaries 
for  you,  or  for  others.  Although  you  cannot  fly  to 
heaven  and  will  give  up  the  idea  of  flying  machines 
from  considerations  of  practical  expediency,  yet  you 
will  not  wish  to  deny  to  man  the  theoretical  freedom 
of  infinite  striving  even  in  the  matter  of  airships,  and 
you  will  not  be  so  small  as  to  give  up  the  idea  of  the 
capacity  for  our  race  for  metaphysical,  or  in  other 
words,  infinite  development. 


FOURTH  LETTER 

Dear  Eugene : 

In  my  first  letter  I  acquainted  you  with  my  pur- 
pose, in  the  second  I  lifted  the  subject  on  my  finger 
tips,  so  to  say,  to  show  it  for  a  brief  moment;  in  the 
third  I  showed  that  its  color  had  inevitably  a  religious 
shade.  I\ow.  to  continue,  permit  me  to  introduce  an- 
otner  point  to  your  consideration. 

The  great  cause  of  the  working  class  has  hitherto 


n 


192 


LETTERS  OX   LOGIC 


always  been  the  beast  of  burden  of  a  small  and  exclu- 
sive minority.  This  is  most  evident  in  the  slave  states 
of  antiquity,  in  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome.  Likewise  in  the 
feudal  and  guild  systems  of  the  middle  ages  the  op- 
pression of  the  mass  of  the  people  is  sufficiently  ap- 
parent. At  present  this  condition  of  things  is  more 
visible  in  Eastern  Europe,  in  Russia,  Turkey,  Bulgaria, 
Hungary,  Eastern  Prussia,  etc.,  than  in  the  industrial 
countries  of  the  West.  In  the  United  States  of 
America  it  is  most  obscured,  so  that  there  the  people 
hardly  realize  their  enslaved  condition.  In  America, 
many  of  the  upper  ten  thousand  have  made  their  way 
from  the  bottom  up,  and  it  happens  more  frequently 
than  in  Europe  that  the  captains  of  industry  laid  their 
foundation  by  hard  work.  The  shortsighted  obser- 
vers then  easily  forget  out  of  sympathy  for  the  hard 
beginning  that  there  is  sharper's  practice  at  the  end, 
and  they  indulge  in  the  idle  hope  that  every  hard  work- 
ing beast  of  burden  might  transform  itself  into  a  happy 
millionaire  by  thrift  and  smartness. 

You  will  probably  ask :  What  has  that  to  do  with 
logic  or  the  art  of  reasoning?  Patience!  You  will 
admit  that  the  emancipation  of  the  nations  from  beastly 
toil,  misery  and  suffering  is  the  highest  goal  of  the 
human  mind.  Nor  will  you  deny  that  the  thought  is 
the  most  essential  instrument  for  reaching  this  high 
goal.  The  accomplishments  of  thought  are  visible  in 
the  results  of  civilization.  The  proletariat  of  the  pres- 
ent, also  that  of  Russia,  Turkey,  East  Prussia,  partici- 
pates in  these  accomplishments  of  thought.  It  par- 
ticipates not  alone  in  the  sense  that  its  brains  are  better 
educated  and  cultured,  but  also  that  its  food,  clothing, 
and   shelter   have   become   more   civilized    through   the 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


193 


progressive  deeds  of  intellect. 

You  see,  then,  that  the  people's  cause  is  connected 
with  the  faculty  of  thought,  and  the  nature  of  the  latter 
may  be  illustrated  as  well  by  the  example  of  the  devel- 
opment of  civilization.  The  complicated  network 
of  wheels  in  a  watch  may  also  serve  to  demonstrate 
the  nature  of  that  which  language  designates  by  many 
names,  such  as  spirit,  intellect,  faculty  of  knowledge, 
reason,  etc.  Only  it  must  be  remembered  that  this 
mysterious  something  cannot  be  show^n  by  itself,  but 
only  in  connection  with  other  things,  whether  they  be 
the  history  of  civilization  or  a  watch.  There  will  then 
be  no  contradiction  in  finding  that  the  intellectual  life 
appears  more  powerful  and  magnificent  through  the 
clockwork  of  the  history  of  civilization  than  through 
any  miniature  product  of  thought. 

In  searching  for  the  connection  of  things,  one  gener- 
ally seeks  to  recognize  the  manner  or  the  degree  of 
the  connection.  But  we,  in  this  case,  disregard  the 
question  as  to  how  the  things  of  this  world  are  related 
to  one  another  and  to  thought,  and  we  simply  make  a 
note  of  the  fact  of  the  interdependence  of  thought  and 
being,  of  nature  and  mind.  This  fact  of  the  universal 
interconnection  of  things  contradicts  the  untrained 
prejudice.  The  uncultivated  brain  nurses  the  illusion 
that  the  earth,  the  trees  on  it,  and  the  clouds  and  the 
sun  above  them  are  separate  things.  But  it  requires 
a  better  training  of  reason  to  understand  that  the  earth, 
the  tree,  the  clouds,  and  the  sun,  can  be  what  they  are 
only  in  the  universal  interconnection.  I  remember 
reading  an  article  from  Fichte,  in  a  German  school 
reader,  which  clearly  showed  that  the  disarrangement 
of  an  insignificant  object  during  the  process  of  think- 


194 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


ing  causes  us  to  disarrange  the  whole  history  of  the 
world  in  our  thoughts.  It  is  well  known  that  one  un- 
familiar with  political  economy  overlooks  the  fact 
that  the  business  men  not  only  carry  on  their  trading 
for  their  private  benefit,  but  are  also  members  of  the 
process  of  social  production.  It  is  overlooked  that  all 
labor,  aside  from  being  individual  activity,  is  at  the 
same  time  an  organic  part  of  social  labor.  And  just 
as  ignorance  of  economics  overlooks  the  industrial  in- 
terdependence, so  ignorance  of  logic  overlooks  the  cos- 
mic interrelations. 

Here  is  a  drop  of  water.  Look  how  different  it  is 
according  to  the  different  things  with  which  it  is 
connected.  It  cannot  be  what  it  is  without  a  certain 
temperature.  According  to  changes  in  temperature, 
it  will  assume  either  the  form  of  ice  or  of  steam.  In 
fat  the  drop  remains  compact,  in  salt  it  divides  in- 
finitely, runs  downhill  in  general  and  uphill  in  a  loaf  of 
sugar.  According  to  the  specific  gravity  of  a  certain 
fluid,  with  which  it  may  come  into  contact,  it  either 
floats  on  the  surface  or  sinks.  Without  a  connection 
with  the  earth,  its  temperature  and  gravitation,  this 
drop  and  all  others  would  disappear  in  the  fathomless 
abyss  and  have  no  existence.  Thus  the  forms  of  things 
change  according  to  their  connections,  and  they  are 
what  they  are  only  as  parts  of  the  universal  interrela- 
tion. 

What  is  true  of  a  drop  of  water,  is  true  of  all  things, 
all  forces  and  substances,  even  of  our  thoughts.  The 
human  mind  lives  and  works  only  in  connection  with 
the  rest  of  the  material  universe — and  the  recognition 
of  the  organic  unity  of  all  things  is  the  fulcrum  of  my 
logic. 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


195 


Old  line  metaphysical  logic  was  so  enamored  of  its 
object  that  the  descent,  the  kinship,  and  the  connection 
with  the  common  things  of  this  world  seemed  too  ordi- 
nary for  the  exquisite  spirit.  That  logic  was  transcen- 
dental, and  therefore  its  chosen  object  likewise  had  to 
be  in  touch  with  a  transcendental  world.  And  though 
it  was  scientific  enough  to  regard  the  tale  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  first  soul  by  the  breath  of  God  as  a  fable, 
it  -was  nevertheless  so  prejudiced  in  favor  of  the  extra- 
ordinary nature  of  the  intellect  that  it  did  not  abandon, 
for  thousands  of  years,  the  hope  of  finding  in  that  intel- 
lect a  source  which  would  reveal  transcendental  mat- 
ters. Formal  logic  now  entirely  discards  this  hope  of  a 
fantastical  world,  but  at  the  same  time  it  misunder- 
stands the  natural  connection  between  the  spirit  and 
the  common  world.  It  isolates  the  instrument  of 
thought  and  leaves  the  question  undecided  whether 
this  instrument  has  a  natural,  supernatural,  or  no  con- 
nection at  all.  It  overlooks  that  just  as  logic  is  real, 
so  reality  is  logical,  and  does  not  see  that  the  back  door 
which  leads  to  illogical  heaven  by  way  of  faith  deserves 
the  disdain  of  science. 

Thought,  intellect,  are  really  existing,  and  their 
existence  is  a  uniform  part  of  the  universal  existence. 
That  is  the  cardinal  point  of  sober  logic. 

The  fact  that  the  thoughts  are  of  the  same  worldly 
substance  as  the  other  parts  of  the  universe,  that  they 
are  parts  of  common  nature  and  not  a  transcendental 
essence,  has  already  been  expressed  by  Cartesius  in 
the  famous  words :  "Cogito,  ergo  sum,"  I  think,  there- 
fore I  am. 

The  fact  of  my  thinking,  says  the  philosopher, 
proves  my  existence.    In  order  to  come  to  an  absolute 


v^ 


106 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


conviction  on  the  nature  of  truth  and  error,  he  sets  out 
by  doubting  everything.  And  then  he  says  that  he 
cannot  doubt  the  existence  of  his  thoughts.  He  thus 
placed  the  spirit  on  the  basis  of  real  life,  delivered  it 
of  its  trancendentalism,  and  that  constitutes  his  ever- 
lasting merit. 

However,  not  alone  Cartesius,  but  also  your  own 
experience  testifies  to  the  inseparable  connection  be- 
tween thinking  and  being.  Have  not  your  thoughts 
been  connected  always  and  everywhere  with  some 
worldly  or  real  object?  If  you  attempt  to  isolate 
thought  in  order  to  ponder  over  it,  you  can  only  do  so 
because  that  thought  has  been  experienced  by  you  and 
therefore  was  in  every  instance  attached  to  some 
worldly  object.  True,  you  have  thought  of  Greek 
gods,  brownies,  and  mermaids.  But  you,  an  amateur  in 
painting,  are  familiar  enough  with  that  part  of  the 
mind  which  is  called  imagination  in  order  to  admit 
that  even  this  eccentric  part  of  the  mind  does  not  only 
act,  and  therefore,  exist  in  reality,  but  also  derives  all 
its  products  from  reality,  so  that  even  its  most  fan- 
tastical vagaries  and  illusions  are  still  real  pictures, 
reflections  of  reality. 

But  how  is  it  that  I  require  such  a  multitude  of 
words  in  order  to  state  over  and  over  again  that  the 
thought  has  a  real  existence  and  is  a  uniform  part 
of  the  universe?  Simply  because  from  time  imme- 
morial the  confusion  in  matters  of  logic  is  so  great  that 
the  human  spirit  is  in  the  same  breath  exalted  to 
heaven,  and  yet  its  thoughts  regarded  as  nothing  real, 
nothing  true.  This  is  made  plain  by  the  fact  that  a 
sharp  distinction  is  commonly  made  between  that 
which  is  real  and  that  which  is  only  imagined,  and  this 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


197 


difference  is  exaggerated  to  such  an  extent  that  it  ap- 
pears as  if  the  idea,  which  indeed  is  only  in  the  brain, 
has  no  real  existence  at  all. 

In  order  that  you  may  understand  the  interrelations 
of  the  things  of  the  universe,  I  must  warn  you  against 
this  exaggeration  and  prove  that  the  intellect  has  a  real 
existence  which  is  connected  with  the  universe  or 
reality.  Botany,  which  occupies  itself  with  plants, 
does  not  only  teach  us  to  divide  them  into  classes, 
orders,  and  families,  but  it  also  does  more  by  showing 
us  what  place  in  the  entire  realm  of  nature  is  occupied 
by  the  vegetable  kingdom,  by  pointing  out  the  differ- 
ences which  distinguish  the  plants  from  the  inorganic 
mineral  kingdom  or  the  organic  animal  kingdom. 
Formal  logic  similarly  dissects  the  spirit  into  its  parts, 
makes  distinctions  between  conceptions,  ideas,  judg- 
ments, conclusions,  divides  these  into  subdivisions, 
classifies  conceptions  according  to  species,  separates 
abstract  and  concrete  thought,  knows  many  varieties 
of  judgments,  registers  three,  four,  or  more  modes 
of  conclusion.  But  at  the  same  time  this  formal 
logic  recoils  from  touching  on  the  question  as  to  how 
the  universal  spirit  is  related  to  the  universe,  what  role 
it  plays  in  the  general  existence,  whether  it  is  part  and 
parcel  of  nature  or  transcendental.  And  yet  this  is 
the  most  interesting  part,  the  part  which  logically  con- 
nects the  intellect  and  the  science  of  the  intellect  with 
all  other  sciences  and  things. 

Logic  must  teach  us  how  to  distinguish.  It  is  not 
a  question,  however,  of  distinguishing  sheet  iron  from 
gold,  or  a  greyhound  from  a  pug-dog,  for  this  is  done 
by  special  lines  of  knowledge.  Logic  must  rather  en- 
lighten us  about  that  part  of  the  faculty  of  distinguish- 


198 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


ing  which  is  generally  required  in  all  branches  of 
knowledge,  whereby  truth  and  error,  imagination  and 
reality  are  recognized.  To  this  end  I  feel  impelled  to 
advise  you  not  to  overlook  that  even  error  and  imagi- 
nation belong  to  the  one  infinite  and  absolutely  co- 
herent reality.  For  the  purpose  of  distinguishing  true 
imagination  from  actual  reality,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  just  as  rye  bread  and  cream  puffs  agree  in  belong- 
ing to  the  general  category  of  baker's  products,  so 
imagination  and  truth,  thought  and  reality,  are  two 
different  kinds  of  the  same  nature. 

To  sum  up  the  contents  of  this  letter,  let  me  point 
out  that  its  beginning  shows  the  connection  of  the  intel- 
lect with  the  development  of  the  people,  while  its  conclu- 
sion explains  the  wider  connection  of  the  mind  with  the 
universal  existence. 


FIFTH  LETTER 


A  man  not  trained  in  logical  thinking  is  handicapped 
by  the  absence  of  a  monistic  method  of  thought.  Mon- 
istic is  synonymous  with  systematic,  logical,  or  uniform. 

If  we  call  a  cream  puff  a  tidbit  and  rye  bread  a  food 
without  remembering  that  every  food  is  a  tidbit  and  every 
tidbit  food,  and  if  we  ignore  the  fact  that  both  of  them,  in 
spite  of  their  difference,  belong  to  the  same  category 
and  are,  therefore,  related,  then  we  lack  logic.  And 
logic  is  lacking  whenever  the  fact  is  ignored  that  all 
things  without  exception:  substances,  forces,  or  quali- 
ties of  the  world,  are  chips  of  the  same  block,  finite 
parts  of  the  infinite,  which  is  the  only  truth  and  reality. 


I 


\ 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


199 


That  insects,  fishes,  birds,  and  mammals  form  one 
and  the  same  animal  kingdom,  is  an  old  story  which  has 
long  been  patched  up  by  the  logical  instinct.  Darwin 
did  not  only  enrich  the  natural  sciences,  but  also  per- 
form an  invaluable  service  for  logic.  In  proving  how 
amphibia  developed  into  birds,  he  bored  a  hole  into  the 
hitherto  fixed  order  of  classification.  He  brought  mo- 
tion, life,  spirit  into  the  zoological  swamp. 

In  case  you  should  not  be  familiar  enough  with  Dar- 
win's work  to  understand  my  allusions,  I  will  enter  a 
little  more  deeply  into  the  matter  in  a  few  sentences. 
The  zoologists  knew  well  enough  that  all  species  of  ani- 
mals belonged  to  the  animal  kingdom;  but  this  classifi- 
cation was  a  mechanical  affair.  Now  the  "Origin  of 
Species,"  which  demonstrates  that  the  zoological  classi- 
fication is  not  constant  but  variable,  which  outlines  the 
actual  transition  from  one  species  of  animals  to  another, 
reveals  at  the  same  time  that  this  alignment  of  all  ani- 
mal species  in  one  kingdom  is  not  only  a  logical  mechan- 
ism, but  also  a  fact  of  actual  existence.  This  classifica- 
tion of  all  animals  from  the  minutest  to  the  most  gigan- 
tic in  one  kingdom  appeared  before  the  time  of  Darwin 
as  an  order  which  had  been  accomplished  by  thought 
alone,  while  after  him  it  was  known  as  an  order  of  na- 
ture. 

What^  the  zoologists  did  to  the  animal  kingdom, 
must  be  done  by  the  logician  to  existence  in  general, 
to  the  cosmos.  It  must  be  shown  that  the  whole  world, 
all  forms  of  its  existence,  including  the  spirit,  are  logically 
or  monistically  connected,  related,  welded  together. 

A  certain  narrow  materialism  thinks  that  everything 
is  done  and  said  when  the  inter-connection  between 
thought  and  brain  is  pointed  out.    A  good  many  things 


I 

( 


liJOO 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


may  still  be  discovered  by  the  help  of  the  dissecting  knife, 
microscope,  and  experiment ;  but  this  does  not  make  the 
function  of  logic  superfluous.  True,  thought  and  brain 
are  connected,  just  as  intimately  as  the  brani  is  related 
to  the  blood,  the  blood  with  oxygen,  etc.;  but  moreover 
thought  is  connected  quite  as  intimately  with  all  other 
things  as  all  physical  objects  are. 

That  the  apple  is  not  alone  dependent  on  the  stem 
which  attaches  it  to  the  tree^  but  also  on  sunshine  and 
rain,  that  these  things  are  not  one-sidedly  but  univer- 
sally connected,  this  is  what  logic  wants  to  teach  you 
particularly  in  regard  to  the  spirit,  the  thought. 

If  a  traveler  in  Africa  had  to  report  a  new  animal 
species,  he  would  not  make  special  mention  of  the  fact 
of  its  existence,  because  that  is  obvious.  And  though 
he  were  to  relate  things  about  the  most  abnormal  exist- 
ence, we  should  still  know  that  this  abnormality  is  only 
a  deviation  in  degree  which  does  not  overstep  the  bounds 
of  existence  in  general.  But  the  human  intellect  is  a 
greater  novelty  than  the  most  wonderful  animal  species 
of  the  interior  of  Africa. 

You  know  my  sharpwitted  friend  Englander.  When 
I  told  him  that  I  was  writing  articles  on  the  human 
mind,  he  advised  me  not  to  bother  my  head  about  it.  He 
said  that  this  was  a  subject  no  man  knew  anything  about. 
And  when  the  learned  Mr.  Hinze,  whom  you  also  know, 
wanted  to  prove  the  inevitability  of  religious  faith  and 
the  inadequacy  of  all  science,  he  always  asked  the  pa- 
thetic question:  What  is  consciousness?  And  he  used 
to  take  on  an  expression,  as  if  he  had  presented  a  book 
with  seven  seals.  Now  I  don't  want  to  class  the  pro- 
fessors of  logic  with  such  men.  But  it  is  a  fact  that  the 
great  multitude,  among  them  many  scientists,  are  quite 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


201 


unfamiliar  with  the  truth  that  the  existence  of  the  blue 
sky  and  of  the  green  trees  is  a  uniform  part  of  the  same 
generality  with  the  existence  of  our  intellect. 

For  this  reason  it  is  necessary  to  prove  that  the  in- 
tellect exists  in  the  same  way  that  all  other  things  do. 
For  it  is  denied  and  misunderstood,  not  only  by  those 
who  regard  the  spirit  as  a  being  of  a  transcendental  na- 
ture, but  also  by  those  who  admit  the  existence  of  the  true 
contents  of  an  ideological  concept,  but  not  of  thought 
itself.  In  short,  the  matter  is  so  obscure  that  I  feel  sure 
that  you  will  likewise  be  as  yet  in  doubt  whether  there 
are  not  two  kinds  of  ideological  concepts,  one  of  them 
real,  the  other  unreal. 

For  two  thousand  years  logic  has  proclaimed  the  sen- 
tence that  thought  is  a  form  to  be  filled  with  real  contents. 
True  thought  "must  coincide  with  reality."  It  is  true 
that  there  is  a  germ  of  sense  in  this  statement,  but  it 
is  misunderstood.  The  central  point  of  logic  is  over- 
looked. Every  thought  must  not  only  have  a  real  con- 
tent, but  it  is  also  necessary,  in  order  to  distinguish  true 
thoughts  or  perceptions  from  untrue,  to  realize  that 
thought  is  always  and  everywhere  a  part  of  reality  and 
truth,  even  when  it  contains  the  most  singular  imagina- 
tions and  errors. 

Just  as  the  domestic  cat  and  the  panther  are  different 
species  of  cats  and  yet  belong  to  the  same  genus  of 
cats,  so  true  and  false  thoughts,  in  spite  of  all  their 
differences,  are  of  the  same  genus.  For  truth  is  so 
great  that  it  comprises  absolutely  everything.  Truth. 
reality,  the  world,  the  all,  the  infinite  and  the  absolute 
are  synonymous  expressions.  A  clear  conception  of 
truth  is  indispensable  for  the  understanding  of  logic. 
And   in    the   last   analysis   it   is    simply    using   different 


202 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


words  for  the  same  thing,  when  I  base  the  quintessence 
of  logic,  its  fulcrum,  cardinal,  salient,  or  distinctive 
point  on  the  spirit  intimately  united  to  nature  or  on  the 
concept  of  a  uniform  world,  truth,  or  reality.  I  cannot 
give  you  a  clearer  view  of  truth  than  by  quoting  at  this 
place  the  famous  words  of  Lessing:  "If  God  were  to 
offer  me  the  ever  active  striving  for  truth  in  his  left 
hand  and  truth  in  his  right  hand,  I  should  grasp  his  left 
and  say:  Father,  keep  truth,  it  is  for  you  alone."  This 
statement  is  somewhat  highfiown  and  mystical,  and  Les- 
sing was  no  doubt  somewhat  embarrassed  by  mystical 
thinking.  Still  there  is  a  sober  truth  in  these  words, 
which  is  quite  clear  and  to  the  point. 

"Truth  itself"  is  the  universe,  the  infinite  and  inex- 
haustible. Every  part  of  it  is  a  finite  part  of  the  infinite 
and  is,  therefore,  finite  and  infinite,  perishable  and  im- 
perishable at  the  same  time.  Every  part  is  a  separate 
part  and  connected  inseparably  with  the  whole.  The 
human  mind,  among  others,  is  such  a  part. 

The  universal  existence,  or  truth,  is  the  inexhaust- 
ible object  of  the  human  mind.  The  fact  that  in  the 
study  of  logic  the  human  mind  has  itself  for  an  object 
must  be  explained  to  the  student  by  pointing  out  that 
in  this  case  the  subject  and  the  object  are  both  things 
like  all  other  things,  in  other  words,  are  a  part  of  truth, 
a  part  of  natural  existence. 

'Truth  itself"  cannot  be  wholly  conceived  by  the 
human  brain,  but  in  parts.  For  this  reason  we  possess 
only  the  ever  active  striving  for  truth:  for  this  reason, 
furthermore,  the  conception  or  knowledge  can  never  be 
completely  identical  with  reality,  but  can  be  only  a  part 
of  it. 

Now  permit  me  to  say  a  few  words  which  do  not 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


203 


sound  as  would  those  spoken  on  the  throne  of  logic,  but 
which  are  expressed  in  popular  language.  If  you  con- 
ceive some  real  object,  whether  a  church  steeple  or  a 
thimble  J  then  this  object  exists  twice,  viz.,  in  reality  and 
in  conception.  On  the  other  hand,  a  certain  creation  of 
imagination  has  only  a  simple  fantastical  existence. 
Such  a  popular  way  of  thinking  is  undoubtedly  correct. 
It  is  incorrect  only  when  the  fact  is  universally  ignored 
that  all  modes  of  existence  belong  to  the  same  genus, 
the  same  as  a  domestic  cat  and  a  panther,  so  that  the 
existence  of  a  thing  in  our  brains,  and  outside  of  them 
in  the  heavens,  on  earth,  and  in  all  places  has  a  logical 
meaning  only  when  it  is  the  same  existence  in  spite  of  all 
multiplicity.  An  existence  not  partaking  of  the  general 
nature  of  all  existence  would  be  an  illogical,  nonsensical, 

thing. 

Now,  I  think  you  will  have  no  difficulty  in  under- 
standing me  when  I  say  that  a  church  steeple  in  imagi- 
nation and  the  same  church  steeple  in  reality  are  not  two 
church  steeples,  but  that  imagination  and  reality  are 
forms  of  the  same  existence. 

Ancient  logic  ordered  a  medal  and  had  stamped  on 
its  face :  The  thought  must  be  identical  with  the  reality. 
We  now  stamp  on  its  reverse  side:  (1)  The  thought 
is  itself  a  part  of  reality  and  (2)  the  reality  outside  of 
thought  is  too  voluminous  and  cannot  enter  thought  even 
with  its  smallest  particle.  What  good,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, is  the  old  inscription,  especially  since  it  does 
not  teach  us  at  all  how  the  identity  between  thought  and 
its  real  object  is  to  be  attained^  known,  or  measured? 

If  you,  my  dear  Eugene,  should  become  confused  by 
these  statements  instead  of  enlightened,  you  should  have 
patience  and  consider  that  a  thing  which  is  to  be  illumi- 


204 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


nated  by  logic  must,  of  course,  be  first  obscure.  I  be- 
lieve that  I  have  served  you  in  some  way  by  simply  rais- 
ing a  doubt  in  your  mind  as  to  the  soundness  of  the 
popular  way  of  speaking  and  if  I  thus  have  convinced 
you  of  the  confusion  and  inadequacy  of  the  plausible  idea 
of  the  identity  of  thought  and  reality. 

True,  a  thought  must  agree  with  its  object  just  as  a 
portrait  should.  But  what  good  will  it  do  a  painter  to 
have  his  special  attention  called  to  this  fact? 

Have  you  ever  seen  a  portrait  or  a  copy  that  did  not 
agree  in  some  respect  with  the  original  ?  I  am  convinced 
that  this  has  never  been  your  experience  any  more  than 
a  portrait  which  was  a  complete  likeness  of  its  object. 
Your  experience  will  be  sufficiently  cultivated  to  know 
that  it  can  always  be  a  question  only  of  a  more  or  less. 
I  would  seriously  recommend  to  you  to  reflect  on  the 
relativeness  of  all  equality,  similarity,  and  identity.  By 
far  the  greater  part  of  humanity  is  in  this  respect  bar- 
barously thoughtless.  It  is  very  difficult  to  grasp  for 
the  logically  untrained  brain  that  two  drops  of  water 
or  twins  are  only  relatively  alike  or  unlike,  just  as  are 
man  and  woman,  negro  and  white  man,  and  that  all  ex- 
istence is  just  as  alike  as  it  is  unlike. 

It  is  with  the  thinker  as  it  is  with  the  painter.  They 
both  search  for  a  likeness  of  reality  and  truth.  In 
painting  as  in  understanding  there  are  excellent  pic- 
tures and  bad  ones.  In  this  respect  one  may  make  a  dis- 
tinction between  true  and  false  thoughts,  but  you  must 
also  know  that  even  the  unsuccessful  portrait  has  some 
likeness,  and  that  even  the  most  accurate  likeness  is  yet 
far  from  being  in  perfect  harmony  and  identical  with  its 
object. 

Reality,  truth,  universal  nature,  stands  in  the  pulpit 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


205 


and  preaches:  "I  am  the  Lord,  thy  God.  Thou  shalt 
not  make  any  graven  image  to  worship  it."  You  must 
have  a  far  too  sublime  conception  of  truth  to  entertain 
the  idea  that  any  painter  or  thinker  might  encompass  it 
fully  within  the  limit  of  a  picture,  no  matter  how  good  a 
likeness  it  may  be.     - 

Now,  that  we  have  recognized  the  human  mind  as  a 
part  of  actual  reality  and  truth,  we  see  at  the  same  time 
that  undivided  reality,  the  sum  of  all  that  is,  represents 
absolute  truth  which  comprises  everything.  In  their  ca- 
pacity of  parts  of  the  universe,  true  and  false  thoughts, 
good  and  bad  men,  heaven  and  hell,  and  all  other  things, 
are  all  pieces  of  the  same  cloth,  bombs  of  the  same 
caliber. 


SIXTH  LETTER 

My  Dear  Son: 

After  the  third  letter  had  acquainted  you  with  the 
fact  that  the  subject  of  logic  has  a  certain  religious 
flavor,  the  two  subsequent  letters  endeavored  to  show 
that  the  logical  subject  is  interconnected  with  the  uni- 
versal existence  of  the  world,  that  the  faculty  of  thought 
is  an  inseparable  part  of  actual  truth.  In  the  vernacular 
of  theology  my  last  two  letters  have  represented  the  hu- 
man mind  as  a  part  of  the  living  true  God. 

Christianity  teaches :  God  is  a  spirit  and  who  would 
worship  him  must  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

And  logic  teaches :  The  spirit  is  a  part  of  universal 
existence.  Whoever  worships  the  spirit,  is  an  idolator, 
for  he  worships  a  part  and  misunderstands  the  whole 
truth.  Truth  itself  is  identical  with  the  universal  ex- 
istence, with  the  world,  and  all  things  are  simply  forms, 


' 


200 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


phenomena,  predicates,  attributes,  passing-  expressions 
of  it.  The  universal  existence  may  be  called  divine  be- 
cause it  is  infinite,  being  the  alpha  and  omega  which 
comprises  all  things  as  special  truths.  The  intellect  is 
such  a  limited  part  among  other  special  parts  of  divine 
truth,  and  the  latter  is  frequently  called  world  without 
any  bombastic  emphasis. 

Undoubtedly,  every  science,  profession  and  trade  can 
say  the  same  thing  of  its  object.  The  blue  sky  and  the 
green  trees  are  divine  parts.  Everything  is  interrelated 
and  connected.  If  that  were  a  good  reason  for  not 
making  any  subdivisions,  every  part  and  description 
would  become  endlessly  tiresome. 

However,  the  specialty  of  logic  is  the  cosmic  sum  of 
all  truths,  because  it  aims  at  a  general  elucidation  of 
the  nature  of  the  human  brain.  This  purpose  is  not  so 
well  served  by  an  accumulation  of  other  knowledge  as 
by  the  general  understanding  of  truth. 

Logic,  which  seeks  to  enlighten  the  mind  for  the 
purpose  of  scientific  thinking,  does  not  so  much  treat  of 
true  conceptions  as  of  the  general  and  absolute  concep- 
tion of  truth  which  is  inseparably  linked  to  the  infinite 
universal  life. 

If  you  wish  to  think  scientifically,  you  will  first  of  all 
strive  after  clear  ideas.  And  yet  your  head  may  be  quite 
clear  in  regard  to  everyday  things,  without  getting  any 
nearer  to  general  clearness.  Nor  is  such  clearness  ob- 
tainable by  the  accumulation  of  mere  special  knowdedge, 
for  even  if  you  were  to  grow  in  wisdom  to  the  end  of 
your  days,  nevertheless  the  fountain  of  wisdom,  the  uni- 
verse, is  inexhaustible  and  your  brain  will  remain  im- 
perfectly informed  or  unclear  as  before  Yea,  even  the 
smallest  part  of  the  world  is  so  inexhaustible  that  the 


LETTERS  OX   LGCIC 


2or 


most  talented  can  never  acquire  all  the  knowledge  nec- 
essary to  understand  entirely  even  tlie  most  minute  ob- 
ject. The  strongest  microscope  cannot  see  all  there  is  to 
see  in  a  drop  of  water,  and  the  wisest  man  can  never 
learn  all  there  is  to  shoemaking. 

You  can  see  by  all  this  that  the  scientific  use  of  our 
intellect  is  furthered  by  special  knowledge  only  in  the 
corresponding  details.  For  this  reason  it  does  not  sat- 
isfy us  to  have  some  logicians  tell  us  how  many  kinds 
of  concepts,  judgments  and  conclusions  are  contained  in 
our  intellect.  These  are  special  details  of  logic.  But 
the  thing  of  first  importance  for  the  student  of  logic  is 
the  elucidation  of  the  universal  concept  of  truth,  not  the 
accumulation  of  special  truths. 

Special  truths  enlighten  the  intellect.  But  the  un- 
derstanding that  all  specialties  are  connected  with  one 
another  by  one  monad  or  unit  which  is  truth  itself  gives 
us  a  certain  general  enlightenment  which  certainly  does 
not  render  any  special  research  unnecessary,  or  take  the 
place  of  it,  but  which  may  w^ell  serve  as  the  foundation 
of  all  research,  which  may  therefore  be  called  a  funda- 
mental assistance. 

I  may  remark  in  passing  that  the  understanding  of 
logical  science  is  rendered  especially  difficult  by  the  fact 
that  the  unpracticed  understands  all  terms  and  concepts 
only  in  their  narrow  popular  meaning,  while  the  subject 
matter  leads  up  continually  into  the  widest  fields. 

When  I  speak  of  parts  of  the  world,  you  must  not 
think  merely  of  geographical  parts,  but  you  must  think 
farther  until  you  arrive  at  the  insight  that  stars  and 
bricks,  matter  and  force,  in  short  all  parts  of  the  world 
are  world  parts. 

The  logical  difficulty  may  be  principally  traced  to  the 


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LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


lack  of  familiarity  with  tRe  comprehensive  categories. 
It  will  be  clear  to  you  that  thinking  and  being,  phenom- 
enon and  truth,  etc.,  are  conceptions  of  the  widest  scope. 
So  you  may  have  some  difficulty  in  distinguishing  be- 
tween concepts  of  truth,  and  true  concepts.  And  yet 
this  is  the  same  as  making  a  distinction  between  the 
general  class  of  herbs  and  its  individual  species.  The 
mere  intercourse  with  such  comprehensive  concepts  as 
truth,  existence,  universe,  is  an  excellent  school  of  in- 
tellectual enlightenment. 

Perhaps  you  may  object  to  the  deviation  of  a  science 
devoted  to  the  special  study  of  the  faculty  of  thought 
into  such  fields  as  existence  or  truth.  But  a  logic  con- 
fined to  an  analysis  of  the  faculty  of  understanding 
would  be  narrow  compared  to  one  representmg  this  fac- 
ulty of  understanding  at  work  in  real  life.  If  the  science 
of  the  eye  were  to  treat  only  of  the  various  parts  of  the 
eye  without  considering  the  things  outside  connected 
with  its  function,  the  light,  the  objects,  in  short,  the  vis- 
ion of  the  eye,  it  would  be  more  an  anatomy  of  the  eye 
than  a  general  science  of  the  eye.  At  all  events  a  science 
which  represents  not  alone  the  subjective  faculty  of 
vision,  but  also  the  living  activity  of  the  eye,  the  ob- 
jective field  of  vision  inseparable  from  the  subjective 
faculty,  is  a  far  more  comprehensive  instruction,  a  higher 
enlightenment  of  the  human  brain. 

In  my  opinion,  logic  should  not  so  much  treat  of  the 
analysis  of  the  intellectual  subject  as  of  the  purpose  and 
object  of  the  faculty  of  thought,  its  culture,  which  is  not 
accomplished  by  the  intellect  itself,  but  by  its  connection 
with  the  world  of  truth,  its  interrelation  with  the  uni- 
versal existence. 

What  can  a  logic  accomplish  which  divides  thought 


LETTERS  ox  LOGIC 


209 


into  analytical  and  synthetical  thoughts,  which  speaks  of 
inductive  and  deductive  understandinsf  and  of  a  dozen 
other  kinds,  but  which  finally  declines  to  meet  the  ques- 
tion of  the  relation  of  thought  and  understanding  to 
truth,  and  fails  to  indicate  what  and  where  is  divine 
truth  and  how  we  may  arrive  at  it? 

Pilate,  the  typical  sceptic,  shrugs  his  shoulders ;  the 
clergymen  make  a  mystery  of  divine  truth :  the  natural 
sciences  care  only  for  the  true  conceptions,  but  naught 
for  the  concept  of  truth ;  and  then  the  special  science  of 
understanding,  formal  logic,  tries  to  refer  its  task  to 
philosophy  or  world  wisdom. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  that  the  titles  of  the  prin- 
cipal works  on  philosophy  indicate  that  the  whole  world 
wisdom  turns  around  the  question:  How  can  our  brain 
be  enlightened,  how  can  it  arrive  at  truth  ?  The  natur- 
alists answer  that  this  can  be  accomplished  by  special 
studies,  and  they  are  frequently  o]:)posed  to  ])hilosophical 
research  which  makes  general  truth  its  main  object,  and 
belittle  it.  You  will  readily  see  that  this  is  a  mistake 
when  you  consider  that,  to  illustrate,  a  maclnne  or  an  or- 
ganism as  a  whole  is  still  something  more  than  a  mere 
sum  of  its  parts. 

No  matter  how  well  you  may  know  each  single  part. 
yet  you  will  not  understand  the  whole  machine  or  or- 
ganism by  this  means  alone.  The  universe  is  not  an  ag- 
gregation of  unorganized  parts,  but  a  living  process 
which  must  be  understood  not  only  in  its  parts  but  also 
as  a  whole.  We  may  pass  for  the  moment  the  question 
whether  the  Milky  W^ay  may  be  dissolved  into  stars, 
and  whether  the  stars  may  become  globes  like  our  Earth 
which  may  develop  plants,  animals,  and  intelligent  be- 
ings.   The  thing  which  is  evident  is  that  there  is  a  pro- 


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LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


cess  of  development,  that  all  nature  takes  part  in  this 
movement,  that  the  universe  is  a  whole  without  end, 
composed  of  an  infinite  number  of  parts ;  a  commg  and 
^oini^,  an  eternal  transformation,  which  is  always  identi- 
cal with  itself  and  always  the  same  world.  What  all 
this  would  be  without  our  eyes  and  ears  and  without  the 
intellect  by  means  of  which  we  use  eyes  and  ears,  what 
the  world  "in  itself"  is,  that  is  a  senseless  and  trans- 
cendental  speculation. 

The  science  of  logic  must  deal  only  with  the  actual 
world    which    is    inseparable    from    us    and    from    our 

thoughts.  . 

This  world  which  we  hear,  see,  smell,  in  which  we 
live  and  breathe,  is  the  world  of  truth  or  the  true  world. 
That  is  a  fact.  Must  I  prove  this  l*  And  how  is  a  fact 
proven  ?  How  do  we  prove  that  a  peach  is  a  delicious 
fruit  ?  One  goes  and  eats  it.  In  the  same  way,  you  may 
now  go  and  enjoy  life,  of  course  in  a  rational  manner, 
and  I  am  convinced  that  your  own  love  of  life  will  tell 
you  that  it  is  proof  positive  of  the  truth  of  the  world,  of 

its  actuality. 

But  even  in  the  midst  of  this  actual  world  there  is 
present  an  inconsistent  element,  a  human  race  with  a 
confused  logic.  This  race  has  been  led  by  various  de- 
pressing and  saddening  circumstances  to  blacken  the 
delicious  truth  of  this  world  and  to  look  for  a  trans- 
cendental truth  in  philosophical  metaphysics  or  religious 
fantasmagorias,  both  of  which  are  parts  of  the  same 
stew.  The  philosophers  of  misery  who  make  of  the 
world  of  truth  a  vain  shadow  and  a  miserable  vale  of 
sorrow  must  needs  be  convinced  by  logic  that  the  living 
world  is  the  onlv  true  one. 

Well,  that  is  not  so  difficult.     But  there  is  a  danger 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


211 


of  getting  into  a  vicious  circle  of  errors,  imitating  a 
snake  biting  its  own  tail.  I  have  to  prove  logically  that 
the  world  and  truth  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  before 
we  have  come  to  an  agreement  as  to  what  is  logical 
truth  or  true  logic.  Nevertheless,  nature  has  assisted  us. 
The  logic  of  nature  is  the  true  logic  by  the  help  of 
which  we  can  agree.  Nothing  more  is  required  than  a 
somewhat  trained  brain. 

Take  two  men  having  a  dispute  about  truth.  One 
of  them  says  it  is  one  thing,  the  other  that  it  is  some- 
thing else.  So  they  are  arguing  about  that  which  is. 
This  last  word  is  a  form  of  the  verb  to  be.  Hence  in 
arguing  whether  the  remote  nebula  in  the  heavens  is  a 
brick  or  a  star,  a  male  or  a  female,  one  is  always  dis- 
cussing some  form  of  existence.  All  disputes  turn 
around  forms  of  existence,  but  existence  itself  is  an  un- 
disputable  truth. 

Have  I  now  still  to  prove  that  all  existence  is  of  the 
same  category  ?  Are  there  any  stones  that  do  not  belong 
to  the  category  of  stones,  or  any  kind  of  wood  which 
;s  iron?  What  would  become  of  reason  and  language, 
if  such  a  thing  were  to  be  considered?  And  yet,  much 
that  is  being  said  by  opponents  is  of  such  a  nature. 

If  I  have  succeeded  in  convincing  you  that  the  uni- 
verse is  the  truth,  there  still  remains  the  special  ques- 
tion: What  place  shall  we  assign  to  fantastic  ideas, 
error,  and  untruth?  If  the  universe  is  the  truth,  then 
everything  would  be  true,  and  hence  it  seems  contradic- 
tory that  error  and  untruth  should  have  a  place  in  truth 
or  in  the  world.  Of  this  more  anon.  I  shall  only  point 
out  in  passing  that  untruth  may  without  any  contradic- 
tion belong  to  truth,  just  as  weeds  are  a  negation  of 
herbs  and  still  at  the  same  time  herbs. 


910 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


In  conclusion  I  call  your  attention  to  the  eminently 
proletarian  character  of  the  science  of  truth.  It  gives 
to  the  working  class  the  logical  justification  to  renounce 
all  clerical  and  mystic  control  and  to  look  for  salvation 
in  this  same  world  in  which  divine  truth  is  hving. 


SEVENTH  LETTER 


The  philologists  distinguish  carefully  between  a 
science  of  language  and  a  science  of  languages.  The 
latter  teaches  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin, 
English,  French,  etc.,,  while  the  former  treats  of  the  gen- 
eral characteristics  common  to  all  languages,  of  language 

itself. 

Philosophical  logic  stands  in  the  same  relation  to 
other  sciences.  The  latter  make  us  acquainted  with 
special  truths,  while  logic  treats  of  truth  in  general. 
Those  overintelligent  people  who  claim  that  truth  is 
merely  a  collective  term  for  many  truths  do  not  see  the 
woods  for  trees.  Herder,  Wilhclm  von  Humblodt,  Max 
Miiller,  Steinthal,  etc.,  have  many  things  to  say  about  the 
science  of  language  of  which  the  linguists  with  many 
languages  never  dream. 

The  science  of  language,  aside  from  its  many  ameni- 
ties, is  also  burdened  with  a  difficult  problem  which  it 
cannot  solve  without  the  help  of  logic.  This  problem  is 
the  point  of  differentiation  where  babbling  and  word- 
mongery  cease  and  intelligent  speech  begins.  For  hu- 
man speech  has  a  certain  meaning,  and  even  the  cries 
of  the  animals  are  not  without  sense.  The  sparrow? 
know  how   to  converse  together,   the    rooster  calls  his 


'. 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


213 


flock  together,  the  dog  knows  how  to  announce  that  a 
stranger  enters  his  master's  home.  Not  alone  the  jokers, 
but  serious  thinkers  speak  of  animal  language,  of  a  sign 
language,  and  maintain  that  speech  does  not  alone  con- 
sist of  words,  but  also  of  inarticulate  sounds  and  gest- 
ures. Poets  endow  even  the  storm,  the  thunder  and  the 
winds  with  speech.  We  wish  to  clear  this  confusion  and 
ascertain  what  language  is  and  where  it  begins.  Lan- 
guages, as  is  well  known,  have  their  beginning  at  the 
Tower  of  Babel.  But  in  order  to  get  close  to  language, 
we  must  look  for  a  beginning  of  things  either  in  God  or 
in  logic. 

You  know  the  old  question :  Which  was  first,  the  egg 
or  the  hen?  But  only  a  frivolous  mind  overlooks  the 
serious  side  of  this  question  and  turns  it  into  a  mere 
joke.  The  question  of  beginning  and  end  is  an  emi- 
nently logical  one,  and  an  unequivocal  and  clear  answer 
to  it  would  bring  light  not  alone  into  the  science  of  lan- 
guage, but  also  into  the  human  brain. 

Let  us,  therefore,  follow  up  the  problem  of  the  "ori- 
gin of  language"  a  little  farther.  When  our  forefathers 
dealt  with  this  question,  they  thought  that  a  God  had 
given  speech  to  man  or  some  genius  had  invented  it. 
They  thought  of  a  beginning  in  time.  The  modern 
thinkers  speculate  more  deeply.  They  have  found  out 
that  language  is  not  a  fixed  thing,  but  fluid,  and  has 
risen  from  low  beginnings  to  a  great  perfection.  We  can 
no  more  find  its  temporal  beginning  by  looking  back- 
ward than  we  can  see  its  end  by  looking  ahead.  For  this 
reason  we  no  longer  look  for  its  temporal,  but  for  its 
ideological  beginning.  (Steinthal.)  We  should  like  to 
have  a  fixed  mark  where  we  might  say:  Up  to  this 
point  that  which  resembles  speech  is  only  roaring,  ex- 


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LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


clamation,  noise,  and  here  is  the  beginning  of  the  well 
articulated  sound  which  deserves  the  name  of  ''spoken 

word." 

But  there  is  still  another  factor  which  complicates  the 
question  further.  Some  say:  It  is  not  only  the  sound, 
the  word,  which  constitutes  speech,  but  the  connected 
sentence ;  there  must  be  sense  and  reason  mixed  with  it. 
And  this  applies  to  the  speaker  and  to  the  listener.  Lan- 
guage presupposes  reason. 

Then,  again,  intellect  is  not  a  fixed  thing,  but  a  fluid 
process  which  develops  in,  from,  and  by  speech.  So  it 
appears  on  one  side  as  if  the  mind  produces  language, 
and  on  the  other,  as  if  language  produces  the  mind,  the 
reason.  Where,  then,  is  the  beginning  and  end,  and  how 
can  we  bring  order  into  these  relations? 

For  us,  who  are  studying  the  mind,  not  the  lan- 
guage, the  conclusion  follows  that  it  is  not  alone  the 
word,  but  also  the  sound,  the  tone,  the  gesture,  that  all 
things  have  a  meaning  and  speak  a  language.  We  find 
mind  wherever  we  penetrate  w;th  our  mind.  Not  alone 
language,  but  the  world  is  connected  with  the  mind, 
with  the  thought.  But  the  connection  with  language 
may  well  serve  as  an  illustration  by  which  the  connection 
of  the  cosmic  mind  may  be  demonstrated  and  the  human 
brain  illuminated. 

Language  shares  the  honor  with  the  mind  of  being 
extolled,  even  in  this  sober  century,  if  not  to  the  skies, 
at  least  far  out  of  the  general  connection  of  common 
things.  For  this  reason,  we  must  emphasize  in  the  case 
of  language  as  in  that  of  the  mind,  that  they  exist,  that 
they  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  universal  existence.  At 
this  point  I  wish  to  give  you  a  vivid  illustration  of  the 
unity  of  all  being  by  pointing  out  that  it  is  indubitably 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


2io 


established  by  the  existence  of  one  single  name  which  is 
sufficient  to  designate  All.  True,  language  employs 
many  names  for  this  unity  of  the  world,  but  that  is  a 
luxury.  It  is  logical  and  necessary  for  the  intellect  to 
have  one  name  for  the  All,  because  everything  is  not  only 
infinitely  variegated,  but  also  infinitely  one,  or  a  unit. 
There  are  many  different  waters,  but  all  water  partakes 
of  the  general  nature  of  water.  Unless  that  nature  is 
present,  there  is  no  water  and  the  name  of  water  docs 
not  apply.  In  the  same  way  there  are  many  kinds  of  oil ; 
olive  oil,  kerosene  oil,  castor  oil,  etc.,  and  each  kind  has 
its  own  subdivisions.  But  everything  that  has  a  common 
name  is  a  unit. 

Kindly  observe,  now,  that  the  names  of  things  form 
just  such  circles  as  the  water  does  after  being  struck  by 
a  stone.  Just  as  the  name  water,  so  the  name  oil  indi- 
cates a  ring.  Then  the  name  fluid  constitutes  another 
and  wider  ring  which  includes  both  oil  and  water.  Then 
the  name  matter  draws  a  still  wider  circle  and  includes 
solids  as  well  as  fluids,  and  finally  the  name  being,  or 
All,  includes  mind  and  matter,  all  matter  and  force,  in- 
cluding heaven  and  hell,  in  one  sole  ring,  in  one  unit. 

On  the  basis  of  this  universal  unity,  from  which  it 
becomes  apparent  that  high  and  low,  dry  and  fluid,  in 
short  the  whole  universe  is  made  of  the  same  substance, 
any  fantastic  thinker  can  prove  that  human  and  animal 
language  is  one,  for  otherwise  one  could  not  refer  to 
both  of  them  as  language.  He  may  then  justly  contend 
that  speech,  producing  a  sound,  is  a  noise,  that  speech  and 
noise  are  one.  Speech  is  sound  and  sound  speaks.  In 
this  way  language  would  have  no  beginning  and  no  end. 
In  the  last  analysis  it  would  be  one  with  all  things,  and 
all  things  would  be  one  with  it.     In  this  way  the  whole 


216 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


universe  would  become  an  inexplicable,  incomprehensi- 
ble, inexpressible  mixture  of  speech. 

And  yet  it  is  an  old  story  that  man's  insight  grows 
the  more  he  magnifies  a  thing.     The  more  excessively 
we  exaggerate  a  thing,  the  plainer  become  its  boundaries. 
Language  indeed  requires  one  single  name  for  All,  but 
*t  also  requires  an  infinite  number  of  names  in  order  to 
specify  the  parts  of  All.    Inasmuch  as  language  claims  to 
be  only  a  part  of  existence,  this  part  has  to  be  bounded, 
and  you   should   in   this   connection   remember   the   un- 
limited   freedom   of   man    in    drawing    such   boundaries. 
Words  are  not  merely  empty  words,  but  names  of  cosmic 
parts,   of   cosmic    rings    of   undulation.      Language,    or 
rather  the  mind  connected   with    language,    wishes    to 
bound  the   infinite   by   the   help  of  language.     The   in- 
stinctive popular  use  of  language  does   this   in  a   hap- 
hazard way.     Conscious  science  proceeds    in  an    exact 
manner.    Just  as  it  has  determined  on  the  field  of  tem- 
perature what  should  be  called  hot  and  what  warm,  so 
it  is  at  liberty  on  the  field  of  sounds  to  determine  where 
the  name  of  language  begins  or  ceases.     The  end  of  the 
discussion  of  language  is  therefore  this:     That  which 
has  already  been  done  to  horse  power  has  not  yet  been 
done  to  the  concept  of  language ;  it  has  been  somewhat 
fixed  by  common  usage,  but  only  insufficiently.    And  so 
the  moral  of  this  tale  is  that  the  things  of  this  world, 
even  mind  and  language,  are  connected  and  interming- 
ling undulations  of  the  same  stream,  which  has  neither 
beginning  nor  end. 

Let  me  say  it  once  more  clearly  and  without  circum- 
locution: The  logic  which  I  teach  and  the  thought 
which  is  its  object  are  parts  of  the  world,  of  the  infinite, 
and  every  part  being  a  piece  of  the  infinite  is  likewise 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


217 


infinite.  Every  part  partakes  of  the  nature  of  the  infi- 
nite. Hence  you  must  not  expect  that  I  should  exhaust 
my  infinite  subject.  I  confine  myself  to  the  logical  chap- 
ter of  "the  One  and  the  Many."  I  simply  wish  to  make 
it  plain  that  without  any  contradiction  the  whole  multi- 
plicity of  existence  is  of  the  same  nature,  and  that  this 
oneness  of  nature  subdivides  into  manifold  forms.  The 
world  is  interconnected  and  this  interconnection  is  sub- 
divided into  departments.  It  adds  to  the  general  en- 
lightenment of  the  human  brain  to  recognize  this  in  re- 
gard to  language,  to  mind,  to  all  parts  of  the  universe. 

I  repeat,  then :  One  may  think  logically  without  hav- 
ing attended  any  lectures  on  logic,  just  as  one  may  raise 
potatoes  without  a  scientific  knowledge  of  agriculture. 
It  was  possible  to  invent  the  thermometer,  to  clearly  dis- 
tinguish between  sounds  and  colors,  and  a  hundred  other 
things,  without  having  explained  the  faculty  of  discrimi- 
nation. But  the  most  abstract  distinctions,  such  as  be- 
ginning and  end,  word  and  meaning,  body  and  soul,  man 
and  animal,  matter  and  force,  truth  and  error,  presup- 
pose for  their  explanation  a  logical  explanation  of  their 
interconnection  with  our  intellect. 


EIGHTH  LETTER 

Dear  Eugene: 

Logic  is  going  through  the  same  experience  as  eco- 
nomics. The  economists  of  the  capitalist  era  talk  solely 
of  the  means  and  ways  by  which  profit  and  surplus  value 
may  be  increased  They  discuss  only  its  relative  size,  its 
increase  or  decrease.  But  the  thing  itself,  its  origin  and 
descent,  is  not  discussed.     It  is  passed  in  silence  that 


218 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


profit  is  extracted  from  labor  power  by  paying  less  for 
a  day's  work  than  is  produced  by  it.  The  gentlemen  talk 
only  of  the  "wealth  of  nations,"  but  not  of  their  poverty. 
And  though  this  was  due  to  ignorance  in  the  beginning, 
it  has  later  become  sheer  roguery. 

The  formal  logicians  are  as  ignorant  as  they  are 
roguish,  when  they  persist  in  discussing  the  intellect  or 
thought  in  the  traditional  manner  as  if  they  were  iso- 
lated things,  while  ignoring  the  necessary  connection  of 
the  object  of  the  logical  study  with  the  world  of  expe- 
riences. This  interconnection  leads  to  an  explanation  of 
truth  and  erm-  A  sense  and  nonsense,  of  god  and  idols, 
and  this  is  very  inopportune  for  the  professors.  For 
this  reason  this  unwelcome  problem  is  handed  over  to 
the  mystical  departments,  to  metaphysics  and  religion, 
so  that  these  venerable  pillars  of  official  wisdom  may  con- 
tinue their  services  to  the  ruling  classes. 

I  have  already  stated  in  my  letters  that  the  kernel  of 
my  discussion  turns  on  the  distinction  between  formal 
and  what  I  call  proletarian  logic.  The  formal  logicians 
treat  the  intellect  as  a  thing  "in  itself,"  while  I  express 
in  many  different  wavs  the  fact  that  the  intellect  does 
not  exist  by  itself,  but  is  interconnected  with  all  things 
and  with  the  universe. 

That  intellect  has  indeed  a  transcendental  leaning, 
which  seeks  vent  bv  trying  to  exclude  now  music,  now 
language,  now  itself,  now  some  other  fetich  from  the 
universal  interrelation.  But  the  science  of  the  mind 
teaches  that  the  brain  watching  its  own  activity  finds 
out  that  all  affirmations  and  negations,  assertions  and 
contradictions,  belong  to  the  one  omnipotent  world 
mechanijcm,  which  keeps  them  stored  within  itself  and 
which  is  actuallv  truth  and  life.    Inasmuch  as  the  human 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


219 


brain  is  of  the  same  nature  as  this  automatic  universal 
being  and  interconnected  with  it,  logic  is  at  the  same  time 
religion,  metaphysics,  and  world  wisdom.* 

Formal  logic  teaches  that  our  intellect  must  keep  all 
things  apart,  but  does  not  teach  that  it  must  also  connect 
them.     This  logic  is  right  in  one  way  and  yet  does  not 
arrive  at  the  goal  of  a  clear  world  philosophy,  because  it 
permits  the  transcendental  leaning  to  exaggerate  the  dif- 
ferences and  distinctions.     It  overlooks  the  paradoxical 
or  dialectical  nature  of  things  which  are  not  only  sepa- 
rated but  also  connected.    What  must  be  understood  is 
that,  generally  speaking,  the  classification  of  the  universe 
is  only  a  formality.     We  are,  indeed,  justified  in  distin- 
guishing between  above  and  below,  right  and  left,  be- 
ginning and  end,  gold  and  sheet  metal,  good  and  bad, 
but  we  must  also  enlighten  ourselves  as  to  how  multi- 
plicity can  be  a  unity,  the  variable  constant,  and  the  con- 
stant' variable.     Formal  logic  has  a  wrong  name.     It  is 
not  formal,  but  transcendental.     It  shares  the  common 
prejudice  that  there  are  absolutely  contradictory  things 
or  irreconcilable  opposites,  that  there  are  essential  dif- 
ferences which  have  no  connection,  no  bridge  between 
them,  nothing  in  common.    It  teaches  that  contradictions 
cannot  exist,  and  contradicts  itself  by  clinging  to  the  be- 
lief    that    there    are    irreconcilable    contradictions.      It 
teaches  that  a  thing  which  contradicts  itself  is  inconceiv- 
able, is  not  true,  and  thus  reveals  that  it  is  not  well  in- 
formed on  the  formality  of  contradictions,  on  the  true 
conciliation  of   contradictions,   and   on   universal   truth. 
Gold  is  not  sheet  iron,  that  is  true  enough.     Whoever 


•Reliifion  denotes  here  as  much  as  conception  of  the  world  and 
orolanatlon  of  its  last  questions:  and  metaphysics  stands  here  for 
c^ry?hing  conceivable,  which  meaning  embraces  more  than  the 
mere  tangible. — Editor. 


220 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


calls  gold  sheet  metal  or  sheet  metal  gold,  contradicts 
himself     In  the  actual  world  both  things  are  separated. 
Yet  they  are  not  separated  to  such  extent  that  gold  and 
sheet  iron  do  not  partake  of  the  same  nature,  of  the  na- 
ture of  all  metal.    Gold  and  sheet  iron  are  unlike  metals, 
but  they  have  the  same    metallic    likeness.     That    like 
things  are  different  and  different  things  alike,  that  it  is 
everywhere  only  a  question  of  the  degree  of  difference, 
of   formal   differences,   this   is   overlooked   by    -formal 
logic  and  by  all  who  seek  truth  in  any  logical  diagram  or 
fetich,  instead  of  in  the  eternal,  omnipresent  existence 
of  the  inseparable  universe. 

Our  logic  deals  with  truth  or  with  the  universe, 
which  contains  the  most  sublime  gods  and  the  meanest 
deviltry,  in  other  words,  which  contains  everything.  In 
the  world  truth  there  is  contained  error,  pretense,  lies, 
just  as  death  also  lives  in  it.  In  other  words,  error,  pre- 
tense, lies,  death  are  only  phenomena,  formalities,  pass- 
ing trifles  or  things  which  are  nothing  compared  to  the 
one  thing,  that  thing  of  all  things,  which  is  being,  truth, 

The  understanding  of  the  one  living  world  truth  is  so 
greatly  aggravated  by  the  so-called  contradictions  which 
it  contains  We  find  for  instance  that  where  one  thing 
ends  another  begins.  The  end  of  the  one  is  the  begin- 
ning of  another.  Every  beginning  is  at  the  same  time 
an  end  Both  are  contained  in  one  another,  and  yet  in 
our  minds  beginning  and  end  are  separated  We  find 
the  beginning  and  the  end  everywhere  and  nowhere 
Or  look  into  space.  You  do  not  see  any  boundary,  and 
yet  your  vision  reaches  only  a  certain  distance.  Your 
vision  is  bounded  and  yet  there  is  no  boundary  to  be 
seen      Or  look  at  life.     Death  soon  arrives,  and  yet  a 


LETTERS  ON  IX>GIC 


221 


closer  look  shows  that  death  is  not  really  death,  for  "a 
new  life  arises  from  the  ruins."  The  world  proves  to  be 
the  eternal  life  which  docs  not  know  death.  It  is  a  con- 
tradiction to  say  that  death  lives,  but  this  contradiction 
can  be  solved  by  the  understanding  that  the  difference  be- 
tween life  and  death,  however  great,  is  still  a  formal 
one,  a  difference  which  like  all  other  differences  is  re- 
duced  to   relative   insignificance   by   the   infinite   cosmic 

life. 

There  exists  a  widely  diffused  school,   if  this  term 
may   be   applied   to   the   unschooled,   that   preaches   pa- 
tience   in    the    matter    of    the    systematization    of    our 
thoughts   or   the   enlightenment    of    our    intellect,    and 
though  it  no  longer  hopes  for  a  mysterious  revelation, 
yet  founds   its   faith  on  natural   science  which  has   ex- 
plained so  many  things  to  us  and  which  is  finally  sup- 
posed to  throw  light  on  the  "last  questions  of  all  knowl- 
edge."   But  I  can  easily  convince  you  that  the  new  coun- 
tries, plants,  animals,  Esquimaux,  that  may  be  discov- 
ered'on  polar  expeditions,  or  the  inventions  which  Edi- 
son may  perhaps  make  on  the  field  of  electricity,  or  the 
experiences  which  future  astronomers  may  gather  in  re- 
gard to  suns,  moons,  and  comets,  while  they  may  add 
valuable  contributions  to  science  and  life,  will  yet  do  little 
toward  a  correct  general  employment  of  our  intellect  or 
to  a  universal  enlightenment  of  the  human  brain.     On 
the  other  hand,  an  enlightenment  as  to  the  nature  and 
meaning  of  contradictions  will  spread  light  to  the  re- 
motest  corners   of   imagination,   into   the   heavens    and 
eternity,  into  the  existence  of  the  whole,  the  unity  and 
difference  of  all  things 

The  most  drastic,  and  perhaps  the  most  instructive, 
illustration  of  the  correct  meaning  of  contradictions  is 


222 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


223 


crivcn  by  the  contrast  between  truth  and  untruth.   The.- 
uvo  poles  are  perhaps  more  widely  separated  than  tnc 
North  Pole  and  the  South  Pole,  and  yet  they  are  as  in- 
timately connected  as  these  two.    The  commonplace  logic 
will  hardly  listen  to  the  demonstration  of  the  unity  of 
such  apparently  wide  opposites  as  truth    and    untruth. 
Therefore  you  will  pardon  me,  if  I  illustrate  this  exam- 
ple by  others,  for  instance  by  the  contrast  between  day 
and  night.    Take  it  that  the  day  lasts  twelve  hours  and 
the  night  likewise.    Day  and  night  are  opposites.    Where 
there  is  day  cannot  be  any  night,  and  yet  day  and  night 
constitute  one  single  day  of  twenty-four  hours,  in  which 
they  both  dwell  harmoniously.    It  is  the  same  with  truth 
and  untruth.     The  world  is  the  truth,  and  error,  pre- 
tense, and  lies  are  embodied  in  it,  are  parts  of  the  actual 
world,  just  as  night  is  a  part  of  day  without  confusing 
lo^ic     We  may  honesUy  speak  of  genuine  pretense  and 
true  hes,  without  any  contradiction.     Just  as  unreason 
has  still  some  reason  left,  so  untruth  still  lives  inevitably 
in  truth,  because  the  latter  is  all-embracing,  is  the  uni- 

""'"''contradictions  cannot  exist."  But  confused  brains 
full  of  contradictions  nevertheless  exist.  Knives  wi  h- 
out  handles  and  blades,  two  mountains  without  a  valley 
between  them,  and  other  nonsense,  exist  as  a  phrase. 
Tllrre  are  two  kinds  of  contradictions:  Senseless  ones 
and  very  sensible  ones.  Yea,  the  whole  world*  is  an  m- 
finite  and  inexhaustible  contradiction,  f -\^-^;" 
numerable  sensible  statements  and  n^;-^^^^^^^^ 
which  never  disappear  and  yet  may  be  solved  harmo- 
niously  by  the  help  of  time  and  reason. 

From  this  it  follows  that  the  formal  criteria  of  truth 

;^n  we  consider  Its  many  parts  as  such.-EDiTOB. 


which  are  on  everybody's  tongue,  such  as  the  identity 
of  thought  with  its  object,  and  the  absence  of  all  con- 
tradictions, do  not  furnish  a  basis  at  all  for  the  analysis 
of  truth  and  cannot  define  it,  except  in  an  ignorant  and 
roguish  way. 

Since  the  prophet  Daniel  scattered  ashes  in  the  tem- 
ple and  unmasked  the  servants  of  Baal,  other  idol  wor- 
shippers have  continued  to  stimulate  the  people  to  daily 
sacrifices,  in  order  to  steal  the  victuals  at  night.  This 
continual  rascality  and  its  repeated  exposure  has  blunted 
the  desire  of  the  people  to  serve  truth,  so  that  a  great 
many  have  become  frivolous  and  indifferent.  This  ras- 
cally logic,  not  to  mention  ignorance,  encourages  the 
frivolous  and  indifferent  in  their  godless  departure  from 
truth.  In  the  pulpit  and  in  the  garb  of  science  it 
preaches  the  vanity  and  inadequacy  of  research.  This 
is  preached  not  as  a  dogma,  but  as  a  logical  science,  and 
thus  the  senseless  contradiction  is  committed  of  trying 
to  prove  truly  by  the  help  of  the  intellect  that  the  intel- 
lect is  too  limited  to  grasp  the  truth  and  prove  it. 

In  its  historical  course  logical  research  once  arrived 
at  such  a  result  in  good  faith.  This  happened  in  the  fa- 
mous "Critique  of  Reason"  of  Immanuel  Kant.  Our 
shrewd  friends  of  darkness  now  seek  to  utilize  the  fame 
of  this  work,  to  which  it  is  entitled  on  account  of  its 
great  contribution  toward  the  elucidation  of  cosmic 
truth,  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  on  the  strength  of 
it  a  progress  of  enlightenment  beyond  the  standpoint  of 
Kant. 

By  the  way,  Kant  has  demonstrated  that  the  truth  in 
general  is  as  much  a  matter  of  experience  as  the  brain 
with  which  we  search  for  it.  He  has  shown  beyond  a 
doubt  that  our  eyes  and  ears  are  inseparably  connected 


224 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


with  our  mind  and  with  the  whole  cosmic  truth.  But 
the  persistent  spirit  of  transcendentaHsm,  or  what  is  the 
same  thing,  the  traditional  belief  in  the  transcendental 
spirit,  has  led  him  to  grant  a  mysterious  existence  along- 
side of  or  above  the  human  mind,  alongside  of  or  above 
the  cosmic  truth,  to  an  incomprehensible  monster  spirit 
and  to  a  fantastical  hyper-truth. 

^  The  Kantian  critique  of  reason  did  not  understand 
the  universality  of  truth.  It  still  affirmed  the  existence 
of  two  worlds  and  two  truths  without  any  unity.  And  as 
it  is  the  curse  of  the  evil  deed  to  generate  more  evil,  it 
produced  two  intellects.  (1)  The  poor  little  subservient 
intellect  of  man,  and  (2)  the  enormous  and  abnormal 
intellect  of  the  Lord,  who  is  supposed  to  understand  the 
incomprehensible  and  to  untie  the  most  senseless  contra- 
dictions like  so  many  knots. 

The  truth  which  is  the  universe,  the  cosmic  or  uni- 
versal truth,  will  reveal  to  you  the  absurdity  of  abnormal 
humility  which  is  contained  in  the  dualistic  doctrine  of 
the  two  minds.    Of  course,  the  philosopher  Kant  had  a 
greater  intellect  than  Peter  Simple.    But  nevertheless  all 
intellects  partake  of  the  nature  of  the  general  intellect, 
and  no  intellect  can  step  above  or  below  this  general  na- 
ture without  losing  sense  or  reason.     One  cannot  speak 
of  another,  higher,  faculty  of  thought  than  that  acquired 
by  man  through  experience  without  dropping  from  logic 
to    absurdity.     No    doubt   the    animal    world    possesses 
something  similar  to  intellect.     No  doubt,  also,  the  ani- 
mal mind  may  be  separated  from  the  human  mind    by 
some  special  name,  for  instance  "instinct."     No  doubt, 
furthermore,  our  reason  is  strengthened  by  culture  from 
generation  to  generation.    But  that  anywhere  and  at  any 
time   there   should   come   into  existence    a    faculty    of 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


225 


thought  which  would  stand  outside  of  the  cosmic  inter- 
connection, that  is  an  absurd  conception  and  a  sense- 
less thing.  Just  as  necessarily  as  all  water  has  one  and 
the  same  nature,  that  of  being  wet,  just  so  necessarily 
every  intelligence  and  every  thought  partakes  of  the  gen- 
eral nature  of  thought  and  must  logically  be  a  part,  a 
particular  part,  of  the  one  universal  and  empirical  world. 


NINTH  LETTER 


Repetition,   my   dear   Eugene,   is  the  mother  of  all 

study. 

Logic  aims  to  teach  you  the  proper  use  of  the  intellect, 
not  only  in  this  or  that  branch  of  study,  but  in  the  gen- 
eral branch  of  truth.  Its  result  is  the  following  precept: 
In  all  things  always  remember  the  universal  interrela- 
tion. 

In  order  to  illustrate  this  statement  a  little,  let  me 
point  out  that  in  the  period  of  scholasticism  thinking 
was  practiced  without  any  interconnection  with  the  rest 
o.f  the  world,  merely  by  brown  study.  The  present  age 
of  natural  sciences  then  cultivated  a  better  method.  But 
the  method  of  the  natural  sciences  has  not  succeeded  so 
far  in  being  applied  to  the  field  of  law,  morals,  politics, 
psychology,  and  philosophy,  because  the  logical  under- 
standing of  the  total  interrelation  of  the  indivisible  world 
truth  was  lacking,  because  the  concept  of  truth  was  en- 
veloped in  darkness,  and  because  the  privileged  classes 
have  a  great  interest  in  maintaining  darkness. 

For  this  reason,  the  true  method  of  reasoning  still  re- 
quires many  explanations.    The  socialist,  for  instance,  is 


226 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


charged  with  inciting  the  people.  ^'^^  .f'^"^^^  ^^^^ 
tLn  he  can  keep  and  with  sowing  strife  in  the  hearts 
r«en     Those  'Ivho  n.aUe  this  charge  *" Jhe  con.n.on 
place  sense,  tear  two  things,  v.z.,  peace  and  strife    o  U 
of  their  due  connection.    As  a  matter  of  fact  peace  and 

.  t  litaUvavs  dwell  together.    A  nation  whose  peace 

striie  must  ai\\a>i>  uvv^.11  i.  ,,  .      ^  -r^    „rr^,iLi  he  a 

were  not  intermingled  with  a  certam  .f !««'   ;°"J^^^^^" 
nation  of  sluggards.  Thanks  to  the  ^"'^^r^^^^ 
the  nations  are  progressive  and  stirrmg.  Mot  on  is  .the  es 
fence  orthe  world   and  national  motion  is  mconce.vahle 

know  "hat  even  in  the  future  society  the  trees  w ,1    no 
^Z  into  the  clouds,  and  that  the  peace    orMs'^^ 
IZ  and  strive  will  always  be  mixed  w.th  strife.    The 
hope  and  ^tnve  ^^      ^,  ^ore  harmonious  than 

Te^^uil  0^%      Psetwil  nevertheless  be  eternalj, 
"  fhv  rli^harmonv     There  is  nothing  perfect  in  the 

tternai  peace  transcendental 

illusion,  so  long  as  we  think  o    P^^'" '"  ^  ^^^^ 

way  and  as  ^f^^^^^^^'^'^ZZuL^^i^^^ 

of  the  war  go    ^  ° -"'^V saLr^s  e^erUlly,  are  no  less 

is  only  war  m  P-^/^^;;^:;  ^^  of  the  old  school. 
Zsrn  :rStr  wa;  l-^^  -ome  more  peaceful 


i 


LETTERS  OX   LOGIC 


227 


and  humane  in  the  course  of  time.  Tlie  barbarian  form 
of  war,  of  which  the  Prussians  are  masters,  is  not  des- 
tined to  last  forever,  unless  we  speak  of  the  illogical 
eternity  of  the  preacher  which  opens  its  doors  by  leaving 
the  temporal  world.  In  defending  the  social  war,  1  wish 
to  have  it  understood  that  neither  the  conceptions  nor 
the  things  called  war  and  peace  are  separated  by  a  Chi- 
nese wall. 

Everything  is  interconnected  and  interdependent.  It 
is  true  that  strife  and  animosities  may  be  exaggerated, 
and  so  may  peace.  But  whatever  blame  attaches  to  this, 
refers  only  to  the  exaggeration.  It  is  not  the  animosity, 
but  the  excessive  animosity  which  deserves  censure.  By 
recognizing  the  logical  interconnection  between  peace 
and  strife,  the  dispute  of  the  parties  is  rendered  saner. 
There  is  then  no  longer  a  question  of  a  yawning  chasm 
between  satisfaction  and  dissatisfaction,  but  of  something 
about  which  an  agreement  is  possible,  viz.,  how  much 
there  is  of  either. 

As  peace  and  war  in  the  human  breast,  so  all  variety 
intermingles  in  the  cosmic  unit.  In  the  novel  "Homo 
Sum,"  by  Ebers,  the  monk  Paulus,  who  tasted  the  de- 
lights of  the  preliminary  celestial  ecstacy  when  castigat- 
ing his  body,  says:  "I  truly  believe  that  it  is  just  as 
difficult  on  this  globe  to  find  pain  without  joy  as  joy 
without  pain."  And  Till  Eulenspiegel,  that  type  of  a 
practical  joker,  show^ed  an  understanding  of  dialectics 
when  he  lightened  the  difficulty  of  ascending  a  moun- 
tain bv  the  reflection  that  the  descent  on  the  other  side 
would  be  so  much  easier.  Logic  is  no  more  senseless  in 
teaching  that  all  things,  even  the  most  opposite,  are  of 
the  same  substance  than  it  is  in  showing  that  night  be- 
longs to  day  and  weeds  to  herbs. 


228 


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LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


In  order  that  these  petty  ilUistrations  may  not  con- 
fuse your  mind,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  essen- 
tial point  is  the  elucidation  of  the  great  contradiction  be- 
tween mind  and  matter,  between  thinking  and  being, 
which  includes  all  petty  contradictions. 

In  order  to  think  in  accordance  with  logical  consist- 
ency, you  must  not  regard  a  thing  as  something  inde- 
pendent, but  consider  everything  as  fluid  particles  of 
the  same  substance,  which  is  the  thing  of  all  things,  the 
world,  the  truth,  and  life. 

Our  logic  is  therefore  the  science  of  truth.  This 
truth  is  neither  above  nor  below,  neither  in  Jerusalem  nor 
in  Jericho,  neither  in  the  spirit  nor  in  the    flesh,    but 

everywhere. 

Our  logic  is  the  science  of  understanding.  It  teaches 
that  you  must  not  search  for  understanding  by  cudgeling 
your  brain,  but  only  in  connection  with  experience,  with 
the  interrelation  of  things. 

Since  man  in  his  experience  also  meets  errors,  science 
was  dominated  for  centuries  by  the  question  whether 
truth  and  experience  are  not  two  different  things,  wheth- 
er all  our  experience  is  only  an  illusion  of  our  senses. 
Cartesius  replied  to  this:  "No;  the  behef  in  a  perfect, 
true  being  cannot  admit  of  such  a  delusion."  By  sub- 
stituting the  concept  of  truth  for  the  concept  of  God,  we 
are  certain  that  the  world  of  experience  is  not  a  ghost, 
but  the  most  actual  reality. 

Although  the  great  Kant  called  the  cosmic  truth  a 
phenomenon,  because  he  could  not  divest  his  mind  of 
transcendental  faith,  of  the  faith  in  a  transcendental 
truth,  still  we  know  today  that  all  distinctions  which  are 
ever  made  constitute  but  a  nibbling  at  the  universal  unit. 
As  necessarily  as  all  variety  in  baking  produces  bakery 


229 


wares,  just  as  necessarily  heaven  and  earth,  and  every- 
thing connected  with  them,  are  parts  of  the  indivisible 
truth  which  is  also  called  nature,  cosmos,  universe,  God, 
and  experience.  Language  gives  to  its  darling  truth 
many  different  pet  names,  just  as  a  happy  mother  calls 
her  heart's  treasure  by  a  thousand  endearing  terms. 

Feuerbach  reasons  in  this  fashion:  "If  God  is  not 
a  personal  being  diff'erent  from  nature  and  man,  then  he 
is  an  entirely  superfluous  being.  .  .  .  The  use  of  the 
word  God  which  is  always  combined  with  the  conception 
of  a  separate  being,  is  a  disturbing  and  confusing  abuse. 
Why  do  you  want  to  be  a  theist,  if  you  are  a  naturalist, 
or  a  naturalist  if  you  are  a  theist?  Away  with  this  con- 
tradiction! Where  God  is  confounded  with  nature,  or 
nature  with  God,  there  is  neither  God  nor  nature,  but  a 
mystical  amphibious  hermaphrodite." 

Feuerbach  is  right.  The  name  of  God  is  much 
abused.  But  truth  is  also  blasphemed  by  negation  and 
frivolousness.  The  sober  understanding  that  God,  truth, 
nature,  are  various  names  for  the  same  thing  permits  us 
to  play  with  them  without  despairing  of  the  matter.  In- 
deed, this  play  of  words  serves  to  make  the  subject 
clear. 

But  logic  demands  that  we  recognize  truth  as  the  ab- 
solute, as  the  power,  the  force,  and  the  glory,  which  com- 
prises all  logical  and  illogical  distinctions,  together  with 
the  things  to  be  distinguished,  even  the  faculty  of  distin- 
guishing itself. 

Such  an  understanding  of  the  absolute,  such  world 
wisdom,  will  not  make  you  conceited,  because  it  makes 
you  conscious  of  the  fact  that  your  understanding  has 
grasped  celestial  truth  which  at  the  same  time  is  ter- 
restrial, only  in  a  very  general  way.    You  possess  noth- 


LETTERS  OX   LOGIC 


231 


230 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


ing  but  a  definition  of  truth.  And  without  denying  that 
definitios  are  valuable  and  instructive,  I.  at  the  same 
iLeToint  out  that  you  know  very  little  about  astr-- 
niy  when  you  know  that  it  is  the  science  of  the  stars_ 
No  matter  therefore,  how  clearly  I  may  have  defined 
truth  we  require  for  its  complete  understanding  all  the 
deTaiis  of  scLce,  and  that  is  too  much  for  me,  for  you, 
and  for  any  individual  human  being. 

Just  as  our  vision  never  exhausts  the  visible  because 
the  e"c  sees  an  object  but  does  not  fully  penetrate  it,  just 
so  c!i  he  intelJct  never  fully  understand  and  fathom 
he  absolute  all,  the  truth,  or  God.  But  we  can  under- 
stand and  fathom  individual  truths,  parts  of  the  uni- 
versal truth.  What  understanding  grasps  is  not  the 
truth  itself,  but  yet  it  is  true  understanding. 


TENTH  LETTER 

""^My^^pSis  lectures  instructed  you  as  to  the  very 
triv  al  fact  that  the  thought  is  a  part  of  the  world.    In 
prTeeding  from  the  part  to  the  whole,  I  pas.    logica 
from  the  mouth  of  the  river  to  its  source.    The  universe 
s  the  maternal  womb  of  the  intellect  as  of  all  things  _ 
I    occurs  to  me  that  you  or  -me  teacher  o     ogi 
mi^rht  accuse  my  letters  of  lack  of  logic.     It  may  seem 
That  hes     ectur'es  fail  to  present  the  subject  matter  in 
a  ttly  systematized  form.     You  will,  P'-SC  -cu 
this  ^  part  with  the  fact  that  they  appear  in  the  form 
fitters     This  form  demands  that  the  contents  should 

°bX::Uy  lUed  and  --^;^;^^r,„71^  J 
should  furthermore  serve  as  an  excuse  tor  any 


that  my  subject  is  not  a  finished  one,  not  perfectly  elab- 
orated by  others  before  me.  I  am  here  not  merely  a 
lecturer,  but  also  an  explorer  on  a  field  which,  though 
much  investigated,  yet  is  still  rather  obscure. 

The  conclusion  of  my  last  letter  explained  that  the 
use  of  the  term  God  for  the  universe  has  much  to  rec- 
ommend it  and  much  to  disqualify  it.  But  it  is  easily 
apparent  that  the  universe  with  its  absolute  qualities  is 
closely  related  to  that  infinite  being  of  whom  Jakob 
Bohme,  the  philosophical  shoemaker,  said:  "He  is 
neither  the  light  nor  the  darkness,  neither  love  nor  an- 
ger, but  the  eternal  One.  .  .  Hence  all  forces  are 
merely  one  sole  force." 

That  nothing  exists  outside  of    the    universe,    that 
everything  is  contained  in  the  All,  that  the  All,  with  all 
real  and  imagined  beings,  is  everything,  that  it  is  neither 
sweet  nor  sour,  neither  great  nor  small,  but  just  every- 
thing and  all,  this  statement  is  as  obvious  as  the  often 
and  long  repeated  statement  of  identity:    A  equals  A.  ^ 
The  All  is  omnipotent,  omnipresent,  all-wise.     This 
last  term  might  be  questioned,  since  the  universe  is  not 
a  dummy  with  a  monster  head  and  giant  brain.    For  this 
very   reason   it   was   considered   inappropriate   to   apply 
the  name  of  God  to  the  universe,  because  that  creates 
the  impression  of  a  personal  being.    The  All  thinks  only 
by  means  of  human  brains,  and  for  this  reason  omnis- 
cience cannot  be  anything  but  common  human  knowl- 
edge.   Of  course,  you,  I,  and  every  other  man,  are  very 
limited  in  our  knowledge.     But  still  we  may  indulge  in 
the  hope  that   the  things   which   we   do   not  know   are 
known  by  other  men  or  will  be  discovered  by   future 
generations,  so  that  the  collective  human  mind  will  know 
everything  that  is  knowable.    We  cannot  see  everything 


232 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


that  is  visible ;  there  are  animals  that  can  see  even  better 
than  we  can.     But  since  even  the  most  intelligent  animal 
is  supposed  to  lack  the   highest  degree  of  intelligence, 
reason  and  science,  there  is  no  one  who  knows  anything 
except  the  human   race.     Mankind   is  omniscient.     But 
since   all  our   science   is   derived  only    from   the   world, 
mankind  is  only  the  formal  bearer  of  intelligence,  and  it 
belongs  to  the  fountain  of  all  things,  to  eternal  nature. 
Our  wisdom  is  the  wisdom  of  nature,  is  world  wisdom. 
Although  there  may  be  inhabitants  of  the  moon  and  of 
other  stars  who  may  know  things  which  are  unknown 
to  us,  still  that  is  in  the  first  place  a  mere  speculation  of 
little  value,  and   in  the   second  place  universal  omnis- 
cience or  the  onmiscient  universe  would  not  in  the  least 
be  affected  thereby.     It  is  a  reasonable  use  of  the  lan- 
guage to  regard  human  wisdom  as  the  only  and  om- 
niscient wisdom,  just  as  all  natural  and  wet  water  is 
called   water   without   any    further   modification.     I   be- 
lieve in  the  statement  of  Protagoras:    "Man  is  the  meas- 
ure of  all  things."     Whoever  uses  a  different  measure, 
uses  a  superhuman,  transcendental  measure.* 

Hence,  when  I  call  the  cosmic  essence  of  all  exist- 
ence omnipotent,  you  will  not  think  of  a  senseless  magic 
power  which  forges  knives  without  handles  and  blades, 
nor  will  you  read  any  transcendental  meaning  mto  my 
use  of  the  term  omniscience. 

Omniscience  belongs  obviously  under  the  head  of 
lo"-ic  because  the  organ  of  science  and  wisdom  is  the  ob- 
ject of  the  studv  of  logic.  And  it  must  now  be  stated  that 
the  human  mind  docs  not  only  exceed  the  annual  mmd 
bv  far  but  is  also  the  non  plus  ultra  of  all  mmds.  But 
it  must  be  retained  that  this  mind  can  only  be  whatever 


I 


LETTERS  ox   LOGIC 


233 


I 


TjI^Tse  note  the  additional   explanation  on  page  77.— Editor. 


it  is  in  connection  with  the  divine  universe  which  I  may 
also  be  permitted  to  call  wordly  deity.  This  name  is 
fitting  because  it  is  a  means  of  understanding  that  m 
the  first  place  no  monster  mind  rules  the  world,  and  in 
the  second  place  the  natural  universe  is  not  a  mere  sum 
of  all  things,  but  truth  and  life. 

Of  course,  the  identification  of  the  universe  with  the 
religious  God  is  only  a  comparison,  and  comparisons  are 
lame.  Still  we  may  compare  the  sun  with  an  eternal 
lamp  or  the  moon  with  a  candle,  or  the  German  prime 
minister  with  a  butler. 

Logic  shall  teach  you  that  everything  which  may  be 
distinguished  bv  the  faculty  of  understanding  is  of  the 
same  kind,  everything  is  of  common  clay,  but  the  whole 
is  sublimely  elevated  above  all  that  is  commonplace. 
Mere  frivolous  atheism,  as  created  by  the  free-thinkers, 
is  not  sufficient.  A  bare  denial  of  God  always  creates 
some  other  idol  worship.  The  positive  understandmg 
of  the  divine  world  truth  is  an  indispensable  requirement 
for  the  radical  extermination  of  all  idol  worship. 

Logic  must  begin  with  the  sublime,  infinite,  absolute. 
All  logical,  consistent  or  interconnected  thinking  must 
take  its  departure  from  it.  The  so-called  scientific  re- 
search after  temporal  causes,  after  the  egg  from  which 
the  chicken  was  hatched,  after  the  hen  from  which  the 
egg  came,  after  the  kindred  organisms  which  developed 
the  hen  by  natural  selection  and  adaption  according  to 
Darwin,  this  is  a  very  valuable  research  without  which 
we  can  never  understand  the  world  process.  But  never- 
theless, such  research  must  not  satisfy  the  thinking  man. 
Logic  demands  from  everybody  that  he  or  she  should 
search  for  the  highest,  for  the  cause  of  all  causes.  Who- 
ever feels  the  desire  to  bring  logical  order  into  his  con- 


234 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


sciousness,  must  know  that  the  finite  and  infinite,  the 
relative  and  the  absolute,  the  special  truths  and  the  one 
general  truth,  are  contained  in  one  another. 

Logical  thought  as  demanded  by  science  means  noth- 
ing but  to  be  aware  of  the  final  cause,  the  absolute  foun- 
dation of  all  thought.  This  foundation  is  the  universe, 
an  attribute  of  which  is  the  external  and  internal  human 
head.  The  thousand  year  old  dispute  between  the  mate- 
rialists and  the  idealists  turns  on  the  question  whether 
the  spirit  is  material  or  the  world  spiritual.  Our  an- 
swer is  plain  and  clear:  They  both  belong  together, 
they  together  make  up  the  one  thing,  the  thing  of  all 
things.  Mind  and  matter  are  two  attributes  of  the  same 
substance.  They  may  be  compared  the  same  as  fish  and 
flesh,  the  former  being  called  very  appropriately  by  some 
African  tribes  ''water  flesh."  In  this  way,  matter  and 
mind  are  two  kinds  of  meat  of  a  different  and  yet  of  the 

same  nature. 

I  remember  reading  in  a  satirical  paper  the  ques- 
tion: "What  is  a  gentleman?  Answer:  A  gentleman 
is  a  loafer  with  money,  and  a  loafer  is  a  gentleman 
without  money."  Just  as  these  two  types  of  men  are  es- 
sentially alike  and  differ  only  in  the  small  matter  of 
money,  so  you  should  remember  that  there  are  no  es- 
sential differences,  that  all  differences  are  merely  mat- 
ters of  attributes  and  qualities  of  the  same  absolute 
world  substance.  To  distinguish  correctly  and  logically, 
that  is  the  point  which  logic  is  aiming  to  teach  us.  To 
make  distinctions  is  the  function  which  is  also  called 
perceiving,  knowing,  understanding,  comprehending. 
When  you  consider  that  this  function  is  innate  in  man, 
and  that  man  together  with  his  faculty  of  understanding 
is  innate  in  nature,  then  you  recognize  all  distinctions 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


»35 


and  the  distinguished  objects  as  attributes  of  thejindis- 
tinguished  One,  of  the  absolute,  compared  to  which  all 
things  are  only  relative  things,  in  other  words,  attrib- 

utes.  1     •    1 

I  am  endeavoring  to  make  clear  to  you  that  logical 

thinking  requires  the  awakening  of  the  consciousness  of 
the  one  supreme   general  nature.     And   you  must  not 
think  of  this  sum  of  all  existence  in  the  stupid  way  m 
which  people  used  to  think  of  the  animal  kingdom  be- 
fore Darwin,  but  regard  the  world  as  a  living  organic 
unit,  from  which  the  faculty  of  understanding  has  blos- 
somed the  same  as  all  other  things.    In  the  logic  of  the 
narrow-minded,  all  animal  species  are  widely  separated, 
without  anv   living  interconnection,   while   Darvvin  has 
demonstrated  the  uniform  process,  the  intermingling  life 
in  multiform  creation.     The  illustration  of  this  famous 
zoologist  of  the  transition  from  one  species  to  another 
may  serve  as  an  example  of  the  logical  transitions  in  the 
world  process,  in  which  all  differences  are  but  undula- 
tions    All  our  classifications  must  always  remember  the 
undivided  basis  on  which  they  are  resting. 

We  have  shown  that  the  intellect  divides  the  univer- 
sal nature,  classifies  and  analyzes  it,  and  we  have  learned 
of  the  universal  nature  that  it  not  only  furnishes  to  tl  e 
Lellect  the  material  for  its  work,  but  also  that  the  world 
comprises  within  its  general  process  the  -te"-^"f  P™: 
cess,  that  the  intellectual  movement  is  a  specialization  o£ 

the  natural  movement. 

The  world  is  not  only  the  object,  but  also  the  subject 

of  understanding,  it  understands,  it  dissects  its  own  n,u  - 

tiplicitv  by  means  of  the  human  intellect.    Our  wisdom  . 

;  d  wildom  in  a  two-fold  sense:    The  «---ld  is  that 

which  is  being  understood,  classified,  analyzed,  and  at  the 


236 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


same  time  it  is  that  which,  by  the  help  of  our  intellect, 
practices  understanding,  classification,  etc.  When  I  call 
the  human  mind  the  cosmic  mind,  the  mind  of  the  su- 
preme being,  I  wish  to  have  it  understood  that  there  is 
nothing  mysterious  about  this,  that  I  merely  intend  to 
show  that  thought  or  intelligence  can  only  operate  in  the 
universal  cosmic  interconnection,  that  it  is  not  an  abnor- 
mal and  transcendental  thing,  but  a  thing  like  all  other 
things. 

You  must  not  conceive  of  the  spirit  as  the  producer 
of  truth,  as  a  little  god,  but  only  as  a  means.  The  true 
god,  the  divine  truth,  has  our  intellect  for  an  attribute. 
The  latter  does  not  produce  truth,  but  only  the  under- 
standing of  truth.  It  produces  only  pictures  of  truth 
which  are  all  more  or  less  perfect.  Of  course,  it  is  not 
at  all  immaterial  whether  we  produce  a  more  or  less 
faithful,  a  true  or  a  false  picture  of  truth,  but  still  this 
is,  at  present  and  for  us  here,  a  secondary  matter.  The 
main  thing  is  to  know  that  truth,  or  nature,  is  far  above 
all  pictures,  and  still  consists  of  parts,  of  forms,  which 
together  constitute  the  whole. 


ELEVENTH    LETTER 

Dear  Eugene: 

Johannes  Scherr  relates  in  the  ''Gartenlaube,"  a 
German  family  paper,  in  an  article  entitled  "Mahomet 
and  His  Work,"  that  insane  doctrinarians  are  searching 
for  people  without  religion.  This  has  not  succeeded, 
it  is  said,  although  the  spark  of  religious  feeling  is 
"^low^ing  very  dimly  in  peoples  that  are  close  to  the  ani- 
mal. But  nevertheless,  he  continues,  the  expressions  of 
religious  feeling  mark  the   boundary   line  where   the 


LETTERS  ox  LOGIC 


237 


beast  ceases  and  man  begins.  For  just  as  in  the  higher 
stages  of  civilization  religion  means  the  consciousness 
of  the  finite  of  being  one  with  the  infinite,  so  in  the 
lower  stages  of  civilization  the  indefinite  impulse  is 
felt  by  man  to  connect  his  special  nature  with  the 
universal  nature  and  bring  them  into  harmony.  This 
is  idealism,  the  idealistic  need.  It  is  obvious  that,  and 
why,  the  people  have  always  and  everywhere  sought 
and  found  satisfaction  for  their  idealistic  longings  in 
religion.  But,  adds  the  shrewd  observer,  I  must  re- 
mark that  I  do  not  refer  to  the  shifting  population 
when  I  say  "people,"  for  sad  to  relate,  that  population 
is  torn  awav  from  all  connection  with  natural  con- 
ditions.    I  refer  to  the  "settled,  the  permanent,  the 

true  people." 

This  quotation  shows  that  a  champion  of  the  "true 
people"  is  in  conflict  with  true  logic.  In  dividing  a 
population  into  shifting  and  settled  people,  one  should 
retain  as  a  basis  the  logical  consciousness  that  all 
classes  of  people  are  embraced  by  one  class;  further- 
more, that  human,  monkey,  ant,  and  other  nations  are 
parts  of  the  one  and  the  same  nation ;  until  finally  man 
and  animal,  real  and  imaginary,  with  all  religious  and 
godless  things,  are  ultimately  fused  in  the  world  unit 
and  can  never  be  "torn  away  from  all  connection  with 
natural  conditions." 

All  distinctions  must  logically  be  based  on  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  absolute  and  universal  unity,  of  the 
interconnection  of  all  things.  For  this  reason  some 
pious  people,  with  their  God  in  whom  everything  is 
living  and  has  its  being,  have  more  logic  than  some 
freethinkers  of  the  class  of  Johannes  Scherr  who  have 
no  coherence  in  their  method  of  thought.     The  faith- 


238 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


fill  think  more  lo-icallv  than  ibc  narrowly  skeptical 
for  thev  begin  and  end  with  God.  lUit  still  they  can- 
not think  (luite  logically,  because  they  cannot  estab- 
lish anv  logical  connection  between  their  eternally 
perfect  Lord  and  evil,  the  devil,  disease,  misery,  sin.  m 
short  all  the  sufferings  and  vanities  here  below. 

The  unit  of  nature,  the  infinite,  is  the  quintessence 
of  logic.  Neither  natural  science  in  the  narrow  sense 
of  th'^e  word,  nor  metaphysics,  nor  formal  logic,  can 
give  any  clue  as  to  the  nature  of  this  thing  of  things. 
This  can  be  done  only  by  a  science  of  understanchng 
which  recognizes  matter  and  mind  and  all  opposites 
and  contradictions  as  formalities  of  the  universe.  How 
can  a  man  who  is  out  of  touch  with  the  mass  of  the 
shifting  population  feel  that  he  is  one  with  the  uni- 
verse? Whoever  regards  any  special  class  as  the  true 
people,  has  no  understanding  either  of  the  common 
people  or  of  the  absolute  universe. 

Proletarian  logic  teaches  not  only  the  equality  of  all 
human  beings,  but  universal  equality.  And  mark  well, 
this  universal  equality  does  not  conflict  with  variety 
any  more  than  a  variety  of  pots  and  jugs  conflicts  with 
the  unity  of  vessels,  or  the  manifold  forms  of  bretzels 
and  rolls  with  the  unity  of  bakery  ware. 

The  enemies  of  democratic  development,  in  at- 
tacking the  idea  of  freedom  and  equality,  point  to  the 
manifoldness  of  nature,  the  individual  differences  of 
men,  the  distinctions  between  weak  and  strong,  wise 
and  fools,  men  and  women,  and  consider  it  tyranny  to 
attempt  to  equalize  that  which  nature  has  made  dif- 
ferent. They  cannot  understand  that  like  things  may 
be  different  and  different  things  alike.  They  are 
blinded  by  their  class  logic  which  sees  only  the  differ- 


LETTEKS  OX   LOGIC 


239 


ences,  but  not   the   unity,   not   the   transfusion   of  all 

classes. 

Class  logic  teaches  that  contradictory  things  can- 
not exist.  According  to  it,  a  thing  cannot  be  genuine 
and  false  at  the  same  time.  This  class  logic  has  a  nar- 
row conception  of  existence.  It  has  only  observed 
that  there  are  many  dift'erent  things  in  nature,  but  has 
overlooked  the  fact  that  all  these  things  have  also  a 
general  nature.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  recognize  that 
every  thing,  every  person,  is  a  part  of  the  infinite  world 
and  partakes  of  its  general  nature,  is  eternal  and  per- 
ishable, true  and  untrue,  great  and  small  one  sided  and 
manyfold,  in  short  contradictory. 

Before  and  after  Socrates,  philosophy  and  religion 
have  searched  for  the  genuine,  right,  good,  true,  and 
beautiful,   but   have   reached   no   harmonious   results. 
But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  in  the  course  of  the  cen- 
turies the   problem   has  become   clearer   and   clearer. 
The  great  names  of  Pythagoras,  Socrates,  Plato,  Aris- 
totle, Bacon,  Cartesius,  Spinoza,  Leibniz,  Kant,  Hegel, 
are  milestones  on  the  highway  of  this  progress.     The 
evolution  is  apparent,  but  the  interrelation  between  the 
intellectual  and  physical,  and  especially  between  intellec- 
tual and  economic  evolution,  is  much  ignored.    The  bridge 
betw^een  mind  and  body  was  not  found,  and  philosophical 
evolution  has  been  regarded  up  to  our  day  as  a  purely 
mental  process  accomplished  by  one  or  two  dozen  of 
famous  brains.     I  wish  to  point  out  to  you  now,  that 
proletarian  logic  is  the  continuation  of  the  preceding 
research  after  the  genuine,  true,  good,  and  beautiful 
It   teaches   how   to    conceive   of   these    ideals   logically, 
and   it   has   not   so   much   proceeded    from    any   one 


240 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


talented  brain,  but  is  rather  the  product  of  the  entire 

cosmic  process. 

Philosophical  brains  have  developed  the  science  of 
logical  thought  only  to  the  extent  that  the  material  de- 
velopment of  the  world  has  stimulated  them  to  do  so. 
You  must  regard  the  human  brains  only  as  secondary 
levers  of  the  universal  lever  which  is  not  only  genuine, 
true,  good,  and  beautiful,  but  truth,  goodness,  and 
beauty  itself,  or  the  world  and  the  absolute. 

The  understanding  of  the  absolute  which  is  called 
'•good  Lord,"  and  then  again  "the  bad  world,"  in  other 
words  the  selfsufBcient  cosmos,  is  very  inconvenient 
to  the  wisdom  of  the  professors,  and  they  are  attempt- 
ing to  assign   it  to  a  special  study  which  they  call 
"metaphysics."     This  division  of  labor  is  not  intro- 
duced for  the  purpose  of  making  research  more  pro- 
ductive, but  of  surrounding  this  study  by  mysterious 
darkness.     The  professors  who  lecture  to  the  young 
people  on  formal  logic  set  aside  the  ancient  research 
after  the  true,  the  good,  the  beautiful,  and  try  to  place 
these  ideals  outside  of  the  light  of  science  in  order  to 
be  able  to  preserve  them  unchanged  in  the  tabernacle 

of  faith. 

This  charge  may  seem  unjust,  because  the  learned 
gentlemen  reserved  a  corner  for  the  true,  the  good,  and 
the  beautiful  in  their  metaphysical  department.  But 
there  is  something  peculiar  about  this.  The  great 
Kant  has  asked  the  plain  question:  "Is  metaphysics 
practicable  as  a  science?"  Answer:  No!  The  trans- 
cendental truth,  etc.,  sought  by  metaphysics,  and 
named  God,  freedom,  immortality  in  Christian  lan- 
guage, cannot  be  found  by  any  reason.     But  being  a 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


241 


child  of  his  time,  the  great  philosopher  makes  a  small 
concession  to  the  transcendental. 

He  teaches:  Although  transcendental  truth  can- 
not be  located  scientifically,  still  the  religious  faith 
in  its  existence  is  wholesome.  We,  in  our  time,  think 
more  soberly  about  this  theory  of  salvation  and  accept 
the  elimination  of  all  transcendentalism  from  science. 
While  the  spokesmen  of  the  "true  people"  would  like 
to  hide  their  exalted  truth,  freedom,  and  immortality 
behind  the  curtains  of  temples,  we  throw  the  full  day- 
light of  logic  on  the  absolute  truth,  goodness,  and 
beauty  of  the  material  world. 

Logic  as  the  science  of  correct  thought  cannot  be 
restricted  to  any  one  object,  it  cannot  exclude  any  ob- 
ject, whether  terrestrial  or  heavenly,  from  its  sphere. 
The  great  lights  of  present  day  learning  do  not  wish  to 
subordinate  the  intellect  as  the  object  of  the  logical 
department,  and  absolute  truth  as  the  object  of  the  meta- 
physical department,  to  one  another,  but  to  co-ordinate 
them  side  by  side. 

But  two  co-ordinated  things  which  are  not  subor- 
dinated to  a  third  higher  thing  lack  logic,  and  the  brain 
which  is  satisfied  by  such  a  condition  suffers  from  dis- 
order. Logical  truth  must  inevitably  be  a  part  of  ab- 
solute truth,  and  it  is  our  duty  to  remove  absolute  truth 
from  the  field  of  metaphysics,  of  transcendentalism,  and 
to  transfer  it  to  the  sober  world  which  forms  an  insepar- 
able unit  with  the  human  mind. 

So  much  for  the  proletarian  duty  to  continue  the 
research  after  the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful 
which  was  the  object  of  the  philosophers  before  and 
after  Socrates.  But  remember  that  I  am  referring  only 
to  the  truly  good,  beautiful,  etc.,  which  is  contained  in 


242 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


the  universal  truth  of  all  true  specifications.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  ethically  good,  the  esthetically  beautiful 
and  the  absolutely  perfect  is  as  necessarily  contained 
in  the  question  of  the  universal  truth  as  red,  blue,  and 
green  in  the  rainbow,  of  course  only  in  an  abstract 

sense. 

Our  logic  which  has  for  its  object  the  truth  of  the 
universe,  is  the  science  of  the  understanding  of  the  uni- 
verse, a  science  of  universal  understanding  or  concep- 
tion of  the  world.  It  teaches  that  the  interrelation  of 
all  things  is  truth  and  life,  is  the  genuine,  right,  good, 
and  beautiful.  All  the  sublime  moving  the  heart  of 
man,  all  the  sweet  stirring  his  breast,  is  the  universal 
nature  or  the  universe.  But  the  vexing  question  still 
remains:  What  about  the  negative,  the  ugly,  the  evil, 
what  about  error,  pretense,  standstill,  disease,  death, 

and  the  devil? 

True,  the  world  is  vain,  evil,  ugly.  But  these  are 
merely  accidental  phenomena,  only  forms  and  appen- 
dages of  the  world.  Its  eternity,  truth,  goodness, 
beauty,  is  substantial,  existing,  positive.  Its  negative 
is  like  the  darkness  which  serves  to  make  the  light 
more  brilliant,  so  that  it  may  overcome  the  dark  and 
shine  so  much  more  brightly. 

The  spokesmen  of  the  ruling  classes  are  not  open 
for  such  a  sublime  optimism,  because  they  have  the 
pessimistic  duty  of  perpetuating  misery  and  servitude. 


TWELFTH  LETTER 


Logic,  the  science  of  correct  thought,  demands  in 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


243 


the   first   place   true,   or   in   other   words,   reasonable 
thought.    Logic  deals  with  reason  and  truth. 

These  two  things  have  been  endowed  with  a  mys- 
terious nature,  while  they  obviously  belong  to  the 
entire  universe  and  its  tangible  nature.  Reason  and 
truth  are  not  separated  from  the  other  things,  are  not 
things  in  themselves.  There  is  no  such  thing.  Philoso- 
phers who  have  looked  for  them  in  the  depths  of  the 
human  brain  with  their  hands  over  their  eyes  and  en- 
gaged in  brown  study,  were  on  the  wrong  road.  Pro- 
letarian logic  differs  from  conventional  logic  in  that 
it  does  not  look  for  reason  and  truth  behind  the  cur- 
tains of  temples,  nor  in  the  brains  of  the  learned,  but 
it  discovers  them  in  the  actual  interconnection  of  all 
things  and  processes  of  nature. 

Preachers,  professors,  judges,  and  politicians  are 
the  leaders  of  *'the  wise  men  of  Gotham,"  and  since  we 
have  all  passed  our  youth  among  them,  we  find  it  difficult 
to  get  rid  of  their  confused  logic. 

We  owe  much  of  our  better  insight  to  the  famous 
philosophers.  These  men  had  many  an  eccentric  no- 
tion, but  on  the  whole  they  were  reasonable  fellows 
who  followed  the  doctrine  of  the  unreliability  of  the 
senses  and  the  faith  in  the  hidden  truth  and  reason 
more  in  a  theoretical  than  in  a  practical  way.  In  prac- 
tice thev  operated  with  open  eyes  and  ears.  Thus 
correct  logic,  although  confused  by  queer  notions,  has 
been  handed  down  to  us  from  generation  to  generation. 
Preachers,  professors,  judges,  and  politicians  cling  to 
the  confused  notions,  while  we  take  the  liberty  to  dis- 
card them. 

Now  we  recognize  not  only  that  reason  and  truth 
are  connected  with  the  world,  but  also  that  the  uni- 


244 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


verse  is  the  supreme  reason  and  truth,  is  that  being 
which  reli^^ion  and  philosophy  have  long  been  looking 
for,  the  most  perfect  being,  which  Plato  called  the  true, 
good  and  beautiful,  Kant  God,  freedom,  and  immor- 
tality, and  Hegel  the  absolute. 

If  he  is  an  atheist  who  denies  that  perfection  can 
be  found  in  any  individual,  then  I  am  an  atheist.  And 
if  he  is  a  believer  in  God  who  has  the  faith  in  the  "most 
perfect  being"  with  which  not  alone  the  theologists, 
but  also  Cartesius  and  Spinoza  have  occupied  them- 
selves so  much,  then  I  am  one  of  the  true  children  of 
God. 

The  abuse  of  sublime  feelings  and  exalted  ideas  has 
filled  many  hearts  with  disgust,  so  that  they  care  no 
longer  for  any  unctuous  sermons.  The  mere  flavor 
of  religion  is  odious  to  them.  Nevertheless  I  assure 
you  that  we  shall  never  get  rid  of  idol  worship,  unless 
we  understand  the  supreme  being,  reason  or  truth, 
in  its  true  nature. 

"Understand"  is  a  mysterious  word.  To  bring  light 
into  the  mystery  of  understanding  by  a  clear  theory 
of  understanding,  is  an  integral  part  of  the  science  of 
thought,  of  logic. 

Permit  me  to  compare  the  faculty  of  understanding 
with  a  photographic  apparatus,  by  the  help  of  which 
you  strive  to  obtain  a  picture  of  the  cosmic  truth.  Then 
you  will  see  at  a  glance  that  in  this  way  we  can  ob- 
tain but  a  dim  picture  of  the  whole.  The  object  ap- 
pears boundless,  too  infinitely  great  and  sublime  to 
permit  of  copying.  And  3^et  we  can  approach  it.  Al- 
though we  cannot  get  a  true  picture  of  universal 
truth,  yet  we  can  obtain  clear  pictures  of  individual 
truths,  in  other  words,  we  can  picture  the  infinite  in  its 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


245 


parts.    By  the  help  of  your  intellect,  you  can  grasp  the 
infinite  by  means  of  limitation. 

Absolute  truth  appears  to  us  in  relative  phenomena. 
The  perfect  being  is  composed  of  imperfect  parts.    A 
"wise  man  of  Gotham"  may  regard  this  as  a  senseless 
contradiction.     But  we  can  separate  the  arms,  legs, 
head,  and  trunk  from  one  another,  and  so  separated 
they  will  be  mere  parts  of  a  corpse,  while  connected 
they  certainly  possess  the  chance  of  vitality.     Life  is 
composed  of  the  dead,  the  most  perfect  being  is  com- 
posed of  imperfect  parts.    In  the  universal  truth  every- 
thing is  contained.    It  is  the  perfect  being,  it  includes 
the  whole  existence,  even  the  imperfect.     The  false, 
the  ugly,  the  evil,  the  nasty  are  involved  in  the  true, 
the  good,  the  beautiful.    The  universal  existence  is  the 
absolute  truth,  the  whole  is  composed  of  relativities, 
of  parts,  of  phenomena.     Our  understanding,  our  in- 
strument of  thought,  is  likewise  an  imperfect  part  of 
the  perfect  being.    Our  intellect  produces  only  a  dim, 
imperfect  picture  of  the  absolute,  but  it  reproduces  true 
pictures  of  its  parts,  although  pictures  only. 

There  are  good  and  bad,  adequate  and  inadequate, 
true  and  false  thoughts  and  understanding.  But  there 
are  no  absolutely  true  thoughts.  All  our  conceptions 
and  ideas  are  imperfect  pictures  of  the  most  perfect 
being  which  is  inexhaustible  in  great  things  as  in  small 
things,  as  a  whole  and  in  parts.  Every  part  of  nature 
is  a  natural  part  of  the  mfinite. 

I  repeat:  All  parts  or  things  of  this  world  have, 
apart  from  their  imperfect  nature  as  parts,  also  the 
world  nature  of  the  absolute  being.  They  are  imperfect 
perfections.  Our  intellect  is  no  exception.  The  human 
mind  is  the  only  mind  having  the  name  of  reason,  and  is 


246 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


the  most  perfect  reason  which  can  possibly  exist.  In 
the  same  way,  the  water  of  this  earth  is  the  non  plus 
ultra  of  all  water.  The  belief  in  another  and  different 
mind,  in  a  monster  mind,  belongs  to  the  same  trans- 
cendental category  as  the  belief  in  a  celestial  river 
without  the  nature  of  water  flowing  around  the  castle 
of  Zion.  Even  the  most  perfect  mind  is  nothing  else, 
and  cannot  be  anything  else,  but  an  imperfect  part  of 
the  absolute  world  being. 

The  first  thing  a  student  of  correct  thought  has  to 
learn  is  to  distinguish  true  thought  from  false  thought, 
and  for  this  purpose  he  must  know  above  all  that  dis- 
tinction must  not  be  exaggerated.  All  differences  can 
only  be  relative.  The  bad  and  the  good  pictures  be- 
long to  the  same  family,  and  all  families  finally  belong 
to  the  absolute,  are  individuals  oT  the  universe. 

For  the  purpose  of  distinguishing  true  thoughts 
from  false,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  true 
thought  is  only  a  part  of  the  truth,  a  part  which  does 
not  exaggerate  its  own  importance,  but  subordinates 
itself  to  the  absolute.  , 

The  following  illustration  may  explain  this.  Al- 
though astronomy  teaches  that  the  earth  revolves 
daily  around  its  axis  and  that  the  sun  is  standing  still, 
it  nevertheless  knows  that  the  fixed  state  of  the  sun  is 
only  a  relative  truths  so  that  from  a  higher  point  of 
view  both  the  earth  and  the  sun  are  revolving.  The 
consciousness  of  its  relative  truth  alone  makes  the 
statement  of  the  sun's  standstill  true.  Again,  when  the 
farmer  sees  that  the  earth  is  fixed  and  that  the  sun  is 
moving  every  day  from  East  to  West,  he  is  mistaken 
only  so  far  as  he  regards  his  standpoint  as  the  whole 
truth,    his     farmers'    knowledge    for    absolute    knowl- 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


247 


edge.  The  knowledge  of  the  absolute  alone  en- 
ables you  to  distinguish  correctly  between  truth  and 
error.  Whoever  sees  the  sun  turning  around  the  earth 
with  the  consciousness  that  this  revolution  is  but  a 
partial  truth  is  not  in  error,  but  sees  truly.  The  knowl- 
edge of  the  absolute  truth  clears  up  error  and  instructs 
us  as  to  the  method  of  correct  thought.  This  thought 
makes  us  apt,  humble,  and  tolerant  in  judging. 

The  "wisest  of  men"  was  very  proud  of  his  modesty 
in  knowing  that  he  knew  nothing.  His  example  may 
well  be  recommended  to-day.  Although  we  have 
learned  a  great  deal,  we  know  very  little  compared 
to  the  inexhaustible  fountain  of  all  wisdom,  good 
mother  nature.  We  learn  every  day,  but  we  never 
learn  all  there  is  to  learn.  What  was  to  the  credit  of 
Socrates,  was  his  firm  faith  in  the  truth,  his  conviction 
of  its  existence,  and  his  faith  in  the  mission  of  the  hu- 
man intellect  to  search  for  truth. 

On  the  contrary,  the  sophists  confused  and  dis- 
puted everything.  They  frivolously  flouted  all  truth 
and  research.  This  same  frivolousness  now  relies 
upon  Kant  who,  misled  by  the  prejudice  of  his  time, 
removed  truth  to  a  transcendental  world  and  therefore 
deprecatingly  called  our  actual  world  the  "world  of  phe- 
nomena." In  distinction  from  him,  our  logic  teaches  trat 
the  phenomena  of  this  world  without  exception  are  parts 
of  the  one  truth,  and  that  the  true  art  of  understanding 
consists  in  studying  the  parts. 

The  doctrine  of  the  sophists  to  the  effect  that  every- 
thing may  be  denied  and  disputed  has  a  certain  simi- 
larity with  ours  in  that  we  declare  that  the  universe  is 
the  truth  and  all  parts  of  it  true  parts,  that  smoke  and 
fog,  reason  and  imagination,  dreams  and  realities,  sub- 


248 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


ject  and  object,  are  true  parts  of  the  world.  They  are 
not  the  whole  truth,  but  still  true.  For  this  reason 
it  is  well  to  call  your  attention  to  the  difference  be- 
tween the  sophistical  and  the  logical  method  of 
thought.  The  contemporaries  of  Socrates  are  still  alive 
to-day.  They  are  teaching  in  the  name  of  God  and  be- 
lieve in  nothing,  while  to  us  truth,  every  day  naked 
and  sober  truth,  is  sacred. 


THIRTEENTH    LETTER 


In  his  "Three  Books  On  The  Soul,"  Aristotle  dis- 
cussed at  length  the  question  whether  the  human  soul 
has  five  senses  or  one.  The  commentator,  J.  H.  von 
Kirchmann,  the  publisher  of  the  "Philosophical  Li- 
brary," remarks  in  his  footnote  172  that  man  has  six 
senses.  He  divides  feeling  into  pure  and  active  feeling. 
According  to  this,  the  phrase  of  the  five  senses  belongs 
to  the  old  iron  the  same  as  that  of  the  four  elements. 
Now  neither  yon,  nor  I,  nor  any  reader  should  worry 
about  the  question  whether  all  sensation  may  be  sum- 
med up  in  the  one  sense  of  feeling,  whether  there  are 
five  senses  according  to  Aristotle,  or  six  according  to 
Kirchmann,  or  whether  there  is  even  a  seventh  sense 
for  the  transcendental,  the  organ  of  which,  as  some 
optimists  hope,  will  gradually  be  developed  with  the 
growing  perfection  of  man.  We  are  concerned  in  this 
matter  only  so  far  as  it  is  connected  with  the  cardinal 
question,  whether  the  world  is  only  one  thing  or  a  mere 
collection  of  an  infinite  number  of  disconnected  things; 
whether   the   so-called   things   are   independent   subjects 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


249 


nnd  objects,  or  whether  they  are  only  predicates  of  the 

one  world  subject. 

Looking  through  the  window  I  see  the  river,  the 
^treet,  the  bridge,  houses,  and  trees.  Everything  is 
a  thing  in  itself  and  yet  is  connected  inseparably  with 
all  others.  The  qualities  of  the  world  are  regarded 
by  the  intellect  as  subjects;  but  the  intelligent  subject 
should  also  know  that  its  actions,  its  distinguishing 
and  understanding,  are  formalities,  a  formal  dismem- 
berment of  the  absolute,  which  in  spite  of  all  division 
always  remains  the  undivided  whole. 

In  order  to  master  this  method  of  thought,  you 
must  understand  above  all  that  the  things  are  only  so- 
called  things,  but  are  in  reality  qualities  of  the  uni- 
verse in  other  words,  relative  things  or  predicates  of 
the  absolute.  You  will  then  understand,  that  our 
thought  has  a  right  to  make  one  thing  as  well  as  six 
of  a  chair,  its  back,  its  seat,  and  its  four  legs.  \  ou  will 
recognize  that  the  five  senses  of  Aristotle  are  not  an 
eternal  truth,  but  a  classification,  which  is  eternally 
variable.     Distinguishing  means  classifying. 

I  know  very  well  that  I  am  making  a  bold  state- 
ment here,  and  that  it  is  not  easy  to  justify  it.  For 
this  reason  vou  must  not  expect  that  I  can  make  my 
meaning  clear  in  a  few  sentences.  It  is  not  only  the 
general  prejudice  which  prevents  this  by  makmg  a 
most  mysterious  and  miraculous  thing  of  the  intel- 
lectual function,  but  also  the  fact  that  this  thing  is 
still  very  obscure,  although  it  has  become  clearer  and 
clearer  in  the  course  of  time.' 

The  freethinking  pastor  Hironymi  writes  on  this 
point  •  "The  most  prominent  naturalists  of  the  present, 
such  as  Dubois-Reymond,  who  are  at  the  same  time 


250 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


thinkers,  admit  that  they  do  not  know  what  feeling, 
life,  consciousness,  are,  and  how  they  arise.  And  this 
ignorance  is  far  more  valuable  for  truth  and  religion 
than  the  alleged  knowledge.  Let  us,  therefore,  continue 
in  the  devotion  with  which  we  have  hitherto  admired 
the  universe  without  understanding  it.  The  higher 
existence,  the  consciousness,  has  not  been  explained, 
it  has  remained  a  miracle,  the  only  lasting,  absolute, 
miracle/* 

Thus  speaks  the  preacher  who  is  a  know-nothing 
by  nature  and  makes  a  business  of  admiring  and  won- 
dering, while  we  are  interested  in  understanding  and 
knowing.  We  wish  to  fathom  the  mystery,  and  hence 
I  may  write  still  more  letters  on  logic  and  you  may 
study  some  more. 

I  shall  try  to  demonstrate  by  a  trivial  example,  how 
it  is  that  understanding  or  distinguishing  is  based  on 
classification. 

Take  it  that  you  awake  at  early  dawn  and  notice  in 
a  corner  of  your  bed  room  something  uncouth  and 
moving  which  you  cannot  clearly  distinguish.  To 
know  that  a  phenomenon  appears  is  not  enough  be- 
cause the  term  phenomenon  applies  to  everything, 
natural  and  unnatural  things,  good  and  evil  spirits. 
Even  if  you  are  sufficiently  enlightened  to  know  that 
the  thing  in  question  must  be  something  natural,  still 
this  explains  very  little,  for  the  term  "nature"  again 
means  everything.  But  you  understand  or  recognize 
more  when  you  ascertain  that  the  uncouth  thing  is 
dead  or  alive,  wall  paper  or  garment,  man  or  animal. 
You  will  notice  that  in  this  intellectual  enlightenment 
it  is  simply  a  matter  of  classification,  of  the  head  under 
which  the  mystery  should  be  classed.    To  classify  the 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


251 


phenomena  of  truth  and  life,  means  to  understand,  to 
use  the  intellect,  to  enlighten  the  brain. 

But  we  must  well  consider  how  far  we  shall  have  to 
go  in  our  classification  in  order  to  find  the  place  in  the 
system  which  will  fully  clarify  and  determine  understand- 
ing. Suppose  that  in  the  above  mentioned  case  you  have 
ascertained  that  the  motion  is  due  to  a  cat,  then  the  inquir- 
ing faculty  of  understanding  has  not  yet  reached  the  end 
of  its  tether.  The  next  question  is  then,  whether  it  is 
your  cat  or  that  of  your  neighbor,  whether  it  is  black, 
white,  or  grey,  young  or  old.  And  when  you  finally  recog- 
nize that  it  is  your  tomcat  Peter,  you  must  remember  that 
the  subject  which  understands  as  well  as  the  object  to  be 
recognized,  being  parts  of  the  absolute,  are  absolutely  and 
infinitely  divisible  parts,  which  are  never  fully  understood 
and  never  fully  exhausted. 

Please  remember  that  in  speaking  of  something  un- 
couth, we  are  not  so  much  concerned  in  Peter  or  Tabby, 
but  in  the  intellect  which  we  desire  to  understand  so  that 
we  may  make  a  correct  use  of  it.    And  I  refer  to  it  as  un- 
couth merely  because  its  understanding  is  beset  with  so 
many  difficulties.    When  I  compared  it  in  the  preceding 
letter  with  a  photographic  apparatus  which  should  fur- 
nish us  with  pictures,  and  in  likening  it  now  to  an  instru- 
ment designed  to  distinguish  things  by  classification,  I 
warn  you  not  to  be  confused  thereby.     Classification  is 
most  essential  as  a  means  of  producing  intellectual  pic- 
tures.   In  this  connection  I  emphasize  once  more  that  the 
faculty  of  understanding,  the  same  as  other  things,  is  not 
independent  by  itself,  but  can  accomplish  something  only 
in  the  universal  interconnection.    The  understanding  that 
the  phenomenon  quoted  above  belongs  to  the  category  of 
tomcats,   and  more   especially   into   the  column   labeled 


252 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


Peter,  would  not  be  any  understanding  at  all,  if  you  had 
not  become  previously  acquainted  with  the  mouse-de- 
vouring race  and  individual  in  question.  Only  in  connec- 
tion with  your  previous  experience  is  the  understanding 
that  this  tomcat  and  the  uncouth  motion  are  one  and  the 
same  thing,  or  belong  to  the  same  category,  a  true  under- 
standing. 

Ludwig  Feuerbach  says :  A  talented  writer  is  recog- 
nized by  the  fact  that  he  assumes  talent  on  the  part  of  the 
reader  also  and  does  not  chew  up  his  subject  into  minute 
parts  like  a  petty  schoolmaster.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  possible  to  assume  too  much,  and  I 
pursued  a  schoolmasterly  course  in  this  case,  because  the 
subject  is  new  to  you  and  still  leaves  plenty  of  room  for 
reflection. 

I  wanted  to  show  by  a  commonplace  example  what  I 
mean  by  insight  and  understanding  and  how  by  means  of 
it  the  unknown  and  uncouth  becomes  known  and  familiar. 
True,  the  understanding  in  this  case  was  illumined  by  pre- 
vious experience,  while  you  are  after  new  knowledge. 
You  want  to  know  how  enlightenment  arises  in  order  to 
acquire  new  insight.  Now,  all  novelty  has  the  dialectic 
quality  of  being  at  the  same  time  something  antiquated. 
New  understanding  can  be  acquired  only  by  the  help  of 
old  understanding.  In  other  words,  old  and  new 
understanding,  which  I  define  here  as  the  faculty  of  clas- 
sification, have  their  existence  only  in  the  total  interde- 
pendence of  the  universal  existence. 

You  must  discard  the  old  prejudice  that  knowledge 
can  be  collected  like  cents.  Although  this  is  well  enough, 
it  does  not  suffice  for  the  purpose  of  logical  thinking.  One 
science  belongs  to  another,  and  all  of  them  together  be- 
long to  one  class  with  the  entire  universe.    It  will  be  ap- 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


253 


parent  to  you,  then,  that  at  the  beginning  of  your  young 
days  your  knowledge  has  not  sprouted  all  at  once,  but  has 
come  out  of  the  unknown.  And  what  is  true  of  you,  is 
true  of  the  whole  human  race.  In  its  cradle  it  was  with- 
out intellect.  It  had,  indeed,  the  germ.  But  do  not 
beasts,  worms,  and  sensitive  plants  have  that  also?  In 
short,  the  light  of  perception  and  understanding  is  noth- 
ing new  in  the  radical  sense  of  the  word,  but  connected 
with  the  old  and  with  the  world  in  general,  and  of  the 
same  kind.  All  our  knowledge  must  be  connected  and 
combined  into  one  understanding,  one  system,  one  realm, 
and  this  is  the  realm  of  reality,  of  truth,  of  life. 

Systematic  classification  is  the  task  of  logic.  The  first 
requirement  for  this  purpose  is  the  awakened  conscious- 
ness of  the  indivisibility  of  the  universe,  of  its  universal 
unity.  This  consciousness  is,  in  other  words,  at  the  same 
time  the  recognition  of  the  merely  formal  significance  of 
all  scientific  classification. 

The  unity  of  the  universe  is  true,  and  is  the  sole  and 
innate  truth.  That  this  sole  world  truth  is  full  of  differ- 
ences, is  just  as  absolutely  different  as  absolutely  the  same, 
does  no  more  contradict  a  reasonable  unity  and  equality 
than  there  is  any  contradiction  in  the  fact  that  the  various 
owls  have  different  faces  and  still  the  same  owl  face. 

Aristotle  divided  the  sense  into  five  parts,  anthropolo- 
gists the  race  of  man  into  five  races,  natural  philosophers 
the  space  into  three  dimensions.  It  is  now  a  question  of 
showing  to  you  that  such  a  division,  however  true  and 
just,  is  nevertheless  far  from  being  truth  and  justice,  but 
is  merely  classification.  The  fundamental  requirement  of 
logic  is  to  designate  scientific  classifications  as  that  which 
they  are,  viz.,  mental  operations.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
intellect  to  make  classifications.    That  is  its  characteristic 


254 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


quality  and  does  not  contradict  the  indivisible  truth  in  t'.c 
least 

Old  wiseacres  teach  that  a  reasonable  man  must  not 
contradict  himself,  and  this  is  a  wise,  though  very  narrow, 
lesson.  Hegel  maintains  that  everything  in  the  world  is 
reasonable,  hence  the  contradictions  are  also.  Under  this 
conservative  exterior  there  is  hidden  a  very  revolutionary 
perception  of  which  the  '^destructive"  minds  take  advan- 
tage in  order  to  flatly  contradict  the  wiseacres  and  their 
stable,  dead,  disordered  order  which  cannot  stand  any  con- 
tradiction. 

Reason  dissolves  all  contradictions  and  opposition  into 
harmony  by  logical  classification.  "Everything  in  its  own 
time  and  place."  If  it  does  not  wish  to  be  called  unreason, 
reason  must  rise  to  the  understanding  that  its  opposite  is 
only  a  formal  antagonism.  It  must  know  that  God  and 
the  world,  body  and  soul,  life  and  death,  motion  and  rest, 
and  whatever  else  the  dualists  may  distinguish,  are  two 
and  yet  one.  Then  it  becomes  clear  that  the  conservatives 
are  the  real  revolutionaries,  because  by  their  senseless 
adherence  to  the  "good  old  order"  they  drive  the  prole- 
tariat to  desperation,  until  it  upsets  that  order.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  maligned  revolutionaries  are  conservative, 
because  they  subordinate  themselves  to  the  world's  evolu- 
tionary process  which  was,  is,  and  will  be  eternal. 

The  red  thread  winding  through  all  these  letters  deals 
with  the  following  points :  The  instrument  of  thought  is  a 
thing  like  all  other  common  things,  a  part  or  attribute  of 
the  universe.  It  belongs  particularly  to  the  general  cate- 
gory of  being  and  is  an  apparatus  which  produces  a  de- 
tailed picture  of  human  experience  by  categorical  classi- 
fication or  distinction.    In  order  to  use  this  apparatus  cor- 


LETTERS  ox  LOGIC 


255 


rectly,  one  must  fully  grasp  the  fact  that  the  world  unit 
is  multiform  and  that  all  multiformity  is  a  unit 

It  is  the  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  ancient  Eleatic 
philosophy :  How  can  the  one  be  contained  in  the  many, 
and  the  many  in  one  ? 


FOURTEENTH    LETTER 

Shoemaking  and  beet  culture  are  as  much  sciences  as 
physics,  chemistry,  and  astronomy.  Reading,  writing, 
and  reckoning  are  called  elementary  knowledge,  and 
though  I  do  not  deny  that  they  have  an  elementary  value 
for  the  culture  of  the  mind,  yet  I  can  truly  say  that  I  have 
met  well-informed  people  who  could  neither  read  nor 
write.  I  wish  to  indicate  by  this  that  there  are  indeed 
high  and  low  degrees  of  knowledge  and  science,  but  that 
such  graduations  have  only  a  temporary,  local,  relative, 
subjective  significance,  while  in  the  absolute  all  things  are 
the  same. 

The  scorn  with  which  you  may  hear  some  people 
speak  of  the  night  of  the  absolute  in  which  all  cats  are 
grey  and  all  women  beautiful  Helenas  shall  not  prevent  us 
from  repeatedly  studying  the  absolute  which  I  have  again 
and  again  praised  as  the  main  topic  of  logic.  Only  re- 
member, please,  that  you  must  not  have  any  mystic  idea 
of  it.  The  absolute  is  the  sum  total  of  all  that  was,  is, 
and  will  be. 

The  subjects  as  well  as  the  objects  of  all  science  be- 
long to  the  absolute,  which  is  commonly  called  "world." 

All  other  sciences  have  for  their  object  limited  parts, 
relative  matters,  while  the  science  of  the  mind  treats  of 
all  things,  of  the  infinite.    This  is  a  point  to  which  I  refer 


25G 


LETTERS  OX   LOGIC 


frequently  because  it  tends  to  make  my  lessons  obscure. 
I  am  lecturing  on  the  science  of  the  intellect,  but  I  speak 
of  all  things,  of  the  universe,  because  I  am  obliged  to  de- 
monstrate, not  the  relation  of  the  mind  to  shoemaking  or 
astronomy,  but  its  general  interrelations.  I  have  to  make 
plain  its  general  conduct,  and  this  leads  necessarily  to 
the  all-embracing  generality,  to  the  absolute.  We  wish 
to  learn  the  art  of  thinking,  not  on  this  or  that  subject. 
but  the  art  of  general  world  thought. 

The  intellect  is  a  special  part,  the  same  as  every  other 
scientific  or  practical  object.  But  it  is  that  part  which  is 
not  satisfied  with  piece  work,  which  knows  that  it  itself 
and  all  special  things  are  attributes  or  predicates  of  the 
absolute  subject,  that  it  itself  and  all  things  are  univer- 
sally interrelated. 

The  human  mind  is  sometimes  called  self-conscious- 
ness. But  this  name  is  too  limited  for  such  an  unlimited 
thing,  for  the  pathfinder  of  the  infinite,  for  your,  my.  and 
everv  other  consciousness  of  the  world  and  of  existence  in 
general. 

For  centuries  the  question  has  been  discussed  whether 
there  are  innate  ideas  hidden  in  the  intellect  or  whether 
it  may  be  likened  to  a  blank  paper  which  experience  im- 
pregnates with  knowledge.  This  is  the  question  after  the 
origin  and  source  of  understanding.  Whence  comes  rea- 
son, where  do  we  get  our  ideas,  judgments,  conclusions? 
By  the  help  of  brown-study  from  the  interior  of  our  brain, 
from  revelation,  or  from  experience?  It  seems  to  me  that 
you  will  quickly  decide  this  matte,  when  I  ask  you  to  con- 
sider that  everything  we  experience,  together  with  the  in- 
tellect going  through  experiences,  is  a  revelation  of  the 
absolute.  Everything  we  know  is  experience.  We  may 
consider  the  mind  as  a  sheet  of  blank  paper,  but  in  order 


LETTERS  ox  LOGIC 


257 


that  it  may  receive  writing  on  its  surface  this  internal 
paper  is  as  necessary  as  the  external  world  which  produces 
the  hand,  the  pen  and  the  ink  for  this  process  of  writing. 
In  other  words,  all  experience  originates  from  the  world 
organism.  Not  knowledge,  but  consciousness,  world  con- 
sciousness, is  innate  in  the  intellect.  It  has  not  the  con- 
sciousness of  this  or  that  in  itself,  but  it  knows  of  itself 
the  general,  the  existence  as  such,  the  absolute. 

The  science  of  the  intellect  has  ever  wrestled  with  one 
peculiar  fact.  It  found  knowledge  which  the  mind  had  re- 
ceived from  the  outside,  so-called  empirical  knowledge. 
But  it  also  found  knowledge  which  was  innate,  so-called 
a  priori  knowledge.  That  there  is  always  a  valley  be- 
tween two  mountains,  that  gold  is  not  sheet  iron,  that  the 
part  is  smaller  than  the  whole,  that  the  angles  of  a  triangle 
are  together  equal  to  two  right  angles,  that  circles  are 
round,  that  water  is  wet,  that  fire  is  hot,  etc.,  these  are 
things  of  which  we  know  that  they  are  true  in  heaven  and 
in  hell,  and  in  all  time  to  come,  although  we  have  never 
Deen  there  with  our  experience.  This  plainly  shows  that  we 
harbor  a  secret  in  our  brains  which  the  lovers  of  the  mys- 
tical seek  to  exploit  by  making  believe  that  their  self-inter- 
ested wisdom  of  God  and  high  authority  likewise  belongs 
to  the  eternally  innate  truths.  For  this  reason  it  is  es- 
pecially important  for  the  proletariat  to  bring  the  contro- 
versy of  the  origin  and  source  of  understanding  to  a  close. 

Our  logic  asks:  Does  wisdom  descend  mysteriously 
from  the  interior  of  the  human  brain,  or  does  it  come  from 
the  outer  world  like  all  experience?  We  shall  leave  its 
descent  from  heaven  out  of  the  question. 

The  answer  is:  Science,  perception,  understanding, 
thought,  require  internal  and  external  things,  subject  and 


\ 


258 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


object,  brain  and  world.  Truth  is  here  and  truth  is  there. 
Truth  is  so  divine  that  it  is  everywhere  and  absolute. 

But  how  to  explain  that  wonderful  a  priori  knowl- 
edge which  exceeds  all  experience?  For  it  is  a  fact  that 
the  intellect  has  not  alone  the  faculty  of  knowing  things 
in  general,  but  also  that  of  separating  them  into  their 
parts  and  from  one  another  and  to  name  them.  It  cuts 
off  slices,  so  to  say.  But  not  like  the  butcher  who  sees 
everything  merely  from  the  standpoint  of  his  trade.  You 
will  remember  from  your  own  experience  as  well  as  from 
my  repeated  statements  that  the  world  is  not  a  monoto- 
nous, but  a  multiform  unit.  This  confused  knot  is  dis- 
solved and  explained  by  intellectual  separation,  by  classi- 
fication. In  the  absolute  everything  is  alike  and  unlike. 
But  the  intellect  makes  abstractions  from  the  unlike.  For 
instance,  in  conceiving  of  the  term  minerals,  we  pass  over 
the  distinction  between  gold  and  sheet  iron.  Then,  when 
we  continue  the  classification  by  subordinating  gold  and 
sheet  iron  as  separate  species  to  the  general  term  of  min- 
erals, we  know  very  well  that  gold  and  sheet  iron  are  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  the  same  general  mineral  nature.  We 
know  what  the  names  indicate,  and  so  long  as  they  retain 
their  meaning,  we  know  that  neither  in  heaven  nor  in  hell 
can  gold  be  sheet  iron  or  sheet  iron  be  gold.  Water  and 
fire  are  specialties  taken  from  the  universe  and  named. 
Is  it  a  wonder,  then,  that  these  names  have  a  special 
meaning  and  that  we  have  the  settled  conviction  that 
wherever  sense  instead  of  nonsense  is  master,  fire  burns, 
water  w-ets,  circles  are  round,  and  the  sum  of  the  angles 
of  every  triangle  is  equal  to  two  right  angles? 

These  illustrations  are  commonplace  enough,  indeed, 
but  it  seems  to-  me  that  they  clearly  show  the  mere  for- 
mality of  the  distinction  between  innate  and  experienced 


LETTERS  ox  LOGIC 


259 


knowledge.  You  will  recognize  that  both  of  these  kinds  of 
knowledge  are  dill'erent  and  yet  of  the  same  kind,  that 
both  are  mixtures  of  the  internal  and  external.  Knowl- 
edge a  priori  ceases  to  be  a  miracle  when  w^e  understand 
that  it  comes  out  of  the  same  fountain  of  experience  as  a 
posteriori  knowledge,  and  in  either  case  knowledge  is  ac- 
quired only  by  means  of  the  intellect.  Hence  intellect 
connected  with  the  world  is  the  sole  source  of  all  wisdom, 
and  external  nature  as  well  as  our  internal  faculty  of  un- 
derstanding are  parts  of  the  one  general  nature,  which  is 
the  truth  and  the  absolute. 

"Only  a  gradual,  slow,  gapless  development,"  says 
Noire,  "can  free  the  thinking  mind  from  the  philo- 
sophical disease  of  wondering." 

The  art  of  dialectics  or  logic  wdiich  teaches  that  the 
universe,  or  the  whole  world,  is  one  being,  is  the  science 
of  absolute  evolution.  "In  the  whole  constitution  of  all 
natural  things,"  writes  Lazare  Geiger,  "there  is  hardly 
anything  more  miraculous  than  the  way  in  which  the 
miracle  avoids  our  glance  and  continuously  withdraws 
into  the  distance  to  escape  observation.  In  the  place  of 
the  abrupt  and  strange  things  produced  by  imagination, 
reason  puts  uniformity  and  transition." 

And  we  add  that  the  science  of  reason,  or  logic, 
teaches  simultaneously  with  the  unity  of  the  whole  world, 
also  that  all  things  are  alike  miraculous,  or  that  there  is 
only  one  miracle,  which  is  existence  in  general,  the  ab- 
solute. In  other  words,  everything  and  nothing  is  mi- 
raculous. 

In  demonstrating  that  the  most  different  things,  such 
as  heat  and  cold,  and  all  radical  distinctions,  are  only  rela- 
tive forms  of  universal  nature,  I  prove  the  uninterrupted 


2(;o 


LETTERS  OX   LOGIC 


and  matter  of  fact  transition  and  the  absolute  graduality, 
tlie  fusion,  of  all  things. 

I  have  tried  to  establish  this  proof  in  regard  to  the  two 
kinds  of  knowledge  and  illustrated  it  with  commonplace 
examples,  because  these  have  a  popularizing  effect.  In 
order  to  meet  the  demands  of  more  exacting  minds,  T 
shall  presently  take  up  the  miracle  of  causality.  The  in- 
dubitable statement  that  everything  must  have  its  cause 
is  regarded  as  the  most  miraculous  innate  knowledge,  and 
is  much  misused  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  confusion 
into  logic. 


FIFTEENTH    LETTER 

My  Son : 

If  on  my  return  from  some  voyage  I  were  to  tell  you 
of  all  the  things  I  have  not  seen,  you  would  justly  doubt 
the  order  of  my  senses.  Sane  reason  demands  that  the 
description  of  unfamiliar  things  be  given  in  a  positive, 
not  in  a  negative  manner.  If  that  is  so,  is  it  not  wrong  to 
proceed  negatively  by  trying  to  prove  in  explaining  the 
nature  of  the  intellect  that  it  is  not  a  miracle  and  no  mys- 
terious charm  of  wisdom  ?  I  answer :  No.  For  the  pres- 
ent, the  intellect  is  still  a  sort  of  ignis  fatniis  which  is 
magnified  into  a  fiery  man.  In  order  to  understand  the 
ignis  fatuus,  it  is  necessary  to  remove  the  fiery  man. 
Logic  must  show  that  human  reason  is  not  a  miracle,  not 
a  mystical  receptacle  of  wisdom.  The  negative  process  is 
in  such  a  case  positively  in  order.  Wherever  a  thing  is 
obscured  by  prejudices,  these  must  first  be  removed,  in 
order  that  room  may  be  made  for  the  bare  fact. 

It  was  the  famous  Kant  who  posed  the  question : 
"How  is  a  priori  knowledge  possible?"    How  do  we  ar- 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


2G1 


rive  at  the  knowledge  of  things  which  are  not  accessible  to 
experience?  The  answer  is  that  the  intellect  cannot  ac- 
complish such  a  miracle,  and  Kant  substantiates  this  in 
a  long-winded  way  and  with  admirable  penetration.  But 
he  left  a  nasty  hair  in  the  soup. 

He  found  that  by  the  help  of  our  reason  we  can  ex- 
plain only  phenomena.  The  confusion  between  truth  and 
phenomena  had  been  handed  down  to  him  as  an  infirmity 
of  ancient  times.  He  worked  diligently  on  its  solution, 
but  left  some  work  for  those  coming  after  him.  Origin- 
ally the  study  of  supernatural  and  the  profane  study  of 
natural  things  were  closely  intermingled.  Not  until  the 
obvious  results  of  natural  science  became  known,  did 
thinkers  accommodate  themselves  to  the  habit  of  leaving 
supernatural  things  to  faith  and  limiting  science  to  the 
study  of  natural  phenomena.  Science  had  so  to  say  passed 
on  to  the  practical  order  of  business,  not  paying  any 
further  attention  to  the  contrast  between  phenomena  and 
truth.  But  the  logic,  which  is  innate  in  the  human 
mind,  cannot  content  itself  with  the  dualistic  split  be- 
tween faith  and  science.  It  demands  a  monistic  system 
and  does  not  desist  until  the  primeval  forests  of  faith 
are  completely  put  under  cultivation. 

The  logical  impulse  of  culture  caused  Kant  to  con- 
tinue what  was  begun  by  Socrates.  Philosophy  before  Soc- 
crates  searched  for  truth  externally.  While  our  logic 
teaches  that  everything  is  true,  and  truth  is  the  universe, 
the  Ionic  philosophers  made  a  sort  of  fetish  out  of  the 
matter.  Thales  idolized  the  w^ater  as  the  thing  of  things, 
another  the  fire,  a  third  numbers.  This  worship  of  the 
fetish  was  the  worship  of  truth.  The  search  for  imder- 
standing  starts  out  with  misunderstanding  From  religi- 
ous to  scientific  culture,  it  is  a  step,  not  a  leap.     When 


I  * 


262 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIB 


363 


Socrates  turned  to  introspection  and  started  out,  with  his 
"Know  thyself,"  in  submitting  the  prodigy  of  the  human 
soul  to  critique,  he  made  another  important  step. 

You  know  that  the  "wisest  of  men"  was  not  inter- 
ested in  air  and  water,  in  natural  science  of  the  strict  or- 
der, but  rather  in  the  good,  the  true,  and  the  beautiful, 
in  the  human  in  the  narrower  sense,  in  the  realm  of  the 
spirit,  in  the  soul.  It  was  indeed  unwise  that  he  was  in- 
terested to  the  verge  of  idolization,  since  in  consequence 
of  this  interest  in  a  special  part,  the  other,  the  material 
part  was  being  neglected.  According  to  Goethe's  state- 
ment that  one  thing  is  not  fit  for  all,  Socrates  did  right. 
He  and  all  philosophical  lights  after  him  studied  the  in- 
tellect. What  they  missed  was  the  now  dawning  under- 
standing that  the  faculty  of  thought  is  not  a  prodigy  but 
a  special,  and  at  the  same  time  common,  part  of  universal 
nature.  While  these  philosophers  looked  for  truth  in 
any  one  special  form  of  excellence,  you  are  now  invited  to 
look  for  it  in  the  total  interrelation  of  things. 

Science  has  ever  endeavored  to  do  away  with  miracles 
and  prodigies.  This  could  be  accomplished  only  gradu- 
ally, and  the  logicians  have,  therefore,  remained  more  or 
less  biased  and  confused.  The  great  Kant  was  no  excep- 
tion. He  looked  for  supreme  truth,  and  for  its  sake  he 
investigated  the  intellect.  He  is  celebrated  because  he 
explained  so  well  that  this  intellect  feels  no  mission  for 
anything  transcendental,  and  cannot  understand  anything 
but  phenomena.  Still  he  permitted  something  transcen- 
dental to  remain. 

Kant  is  of  the  opinion  that  we  perceive  things  as 
they  appear,  but  not  as  they  are  "in  themselves."  Never- 
theless we  should  believe  that  a  mysterious  truth  is  at 
the  bottom  of  those  phenomena,  because  we  should  other- 


wise arrive  at  the  irreconcilable  contradiction  that  there 
are  phenomena  without  anything  which  could  appear. 
The  intellect,  he  holds,  can  operate  only  on  the  field  of 
phenomena,  and  for  this  reason  we  should  give  up  the 
endless  grubbing  after  the  transcendental.  But  we  should 
leave  one  little  room  in  the  house  of  reason,  one  little 
chamber  of  faith,  which  points  beyond  experience  up  to  the 
point  where  a  mysterious  truth  guards  God  and  His 
commands. 

The  subsequent  philosophers,  especially  the  Hegelian 
philosophy,  opposed  this  separation  which  assigned  to  the 
intellect  only  the  study  of  phenomena  and  to  faith  the  ab- 
solute and  infinite  for  veneration.  But  they  did  not  yet 
succeed  in  completely  mastering  the  matter,  they  did  not 
fully  arrive  at  an  indubitably  clear  exposition  of  the  foun- 
tain of  understanding  and  of  the  unity  of  truth,  so  that 
reaction  nowadays  can  again  sound  the  retreat  after  the 
melody:  'Back  to  Kant."  You  know  that  Lessing  com- 
plained about  the  treatment  of  "a  dead  dog"  accorded  to 
Spinoza,  and  Marx  added  pointedly:  "Hegel  is  more 
of  a  dead  dog  to-day  than  Spinoza  was  at  Lessing's  time." 
The  enemies  of  the  working  class  are  the  enemies  of  evo- 
lution. They  wish  to  preserve  the  existing  order  of 
things  and  the  good  old  time  in  which  they  feel  at  home. 
For  this  reason  it  is  the  mission  of  the  proletariat  to  con- 
tinue the  work  of  logic.  It  is  our  duty  to  show  clearly 
that  the  metaphysical  truth  which  Kant  opposed  to  the 
phenomena  of  nature  and  could  not  eliminate  from  the  in- 
tellect, is  nothing  but  just  a  metaphysical,  a  fantastically 
exaggerated,  thing. 

According  to  our  logic,  the  universe  is  the  truth  and 
everything  partakes  of  it.  That  such  a  truth  is  logical 
and  such  a  logic  true,  is  shown  by  the  interconnection  of 


2U 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


things,  so  that  this  science  is  apphcable  to  everything 
which  the  sciences  respect  as  reasonable  and  true. 

In  order  to  help  you  in  the  understanding  of  the  ab- 
solute and  liberate  your  thought  from  all  special  miracles, 
I  refer  to  Kant's  critique  of  reason.  It  teaches  that  our 
intellect  becomes  a  source  of  understanding  only  in  con- 
nection with  other  phenomena  of  nature.  Only  his 
critique  stuck  fast  in  the  mysterious  fountain  of  causality. 
Thus  he  showed  that  he  was  only  a  seeker  after  logic,  not 
its  master.  The  conclusion  that  there  must  be  something 
that  does  appear  where  there  are  phenomena  is  certainly 
correct.  But  that  which  Kant  was  thinking  of,  something 
of  a  transcendental  or  metaphysical  nature,  led  him  to  the 
radically  wrong  conclusion  that  there  must  be  something 
different,  peculiar,  miraculous,  mysterious,  wherever  there 
are  phenomena. 

The  Kantian  conclusion  that  there  must  be  an  absolute 
truth  by  itself  behind  a  phenomenon,  an  absolute  truth 
that  exists  independent  of  and  disconnected  with  such 
phemenon,  was  due  to  his  fetish-like  conception  of  truth. 
It  is  the  first  requirement  for  a  correct  use  of  the  faculty 
of  logical  reasoning  to  know  that  truth  is  the  common  na- 
ture of  the  universe. 

That  a  phenomenon  must  be  based  on  nature,  or  an 
effect  on  a  cause,  is  a  fact  identical  with  ''causality"  which 
I  already  promised  to  discuss  in  the  preceding  letter. 
This  same  problem  may  also  be  expressed  in  the  words: 
Where  there  are  predicates,  there  must  be  a  subject  that 
carries  them.  In  order  to  make  quite  sure  that  I  will  not 
be  misunderstood,  I  emphasize  once  more  the  fact  that  I 
am  not  raising  any  doubt  as  to  the  correctness  of  this 
conclusion,  but  only  to  the  metaphysical  application  of 
this  conclusion  after  the  Kantian  manner  which  consists 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


265 


in  making  the  same  use  of  it  as  a  clergyman  who  tries  to 
prove  that  his  theology  is  innate  in  reason. 

Our  conception  of  logic  wishes  to  show  that  all  causes 
and  effects  are  matter  of  the  same  kind,  and  that  our 
faculty  of  reasoning  is  a  matter  of  fact  thing  which 
brooks  no  mysteries  or  metaphysical  dreams. 


SIXTEENTH    LETTER 

Now  let  me  illustrate  the  interconnection  of  all  things, 
or  the  world-unit,  by  discussing  the  question  of  causality. 
We  know  that  everything  has  its  cause.  We  know  that 
this  is  also  true  on  the  Moon  or  on  Uranus,  although  we 
have  not  acquired  this  knowledge  by  experience  on  those 
world  bodies.  Thus  it  seemed  that  the  intellect  was  a 
mysterious  receptacle  containing  innate  wisdom.  The 
same  receptacle  also  contains,  for  instance,  the  truth  that 
all  white  horses  are  white  and  all  black  horses  black.  We 
do  not  know  anything  about  the  color  of  other  horses  in 
other  countries,  but  the  color  of  black  and  white  horses 
we  know  even  if  we  have  never  seen  them  in  other  coun- 
tries. It  is  thus  apparent  that  our  intellect  is  an  instru- 
ment which  reaches  beyond  experience.  For  this  reason 
there  would  seem  to  be  no  telling  where  the  supply  of 
such  miraculous  revelations  would  stop  and  into  what 
mysterious  worlds  the  intellect  passing  beyond  the  limits 
of  experience  would  lead  us. 

In  order  that  the  human  intellect  may  not  appear 
transcendental,  in  order  to  give  it  its  place  in  the  general 
classification  of  natural  forces,  we  must  investigate  the 
nature  of  causality  and  so-called  a  priori  knowledge. 


2G6 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


Kindly  observe  in  the  first  place  that  a  thing  is  just  as 
wonderful  after  it  is  explained  as  it  was  before  its  ex- 
planation. A  scientific  explanation  of  a  thing  ought  not 
to  do  away  with  our  admiration,  but  only  to  reduce  it  to 
reasonable  bounds.  The  intellect  may  very  well  be  re- 
garded as  something  wonderful,  but  its  wondrous  quality 
should  be  reduced  to  the  measure  of  all  things  which  are 
none  of  them  any  less  wonderful.  After  you  have  ex- 
plained what  water  is,  after  you  have  learned  that  it  is 
composed  of  two  chemical  elements,  after  you  have  real- 
ized all  its  qualities  thoroughly,  it  still  remains  a  wonder- 
ful, divine,  fluid. 

*'A11  things  have  their  causes."  What  are  all  things? 
They  are  attributes,  qualities  of  the  universe.  It  is  innate 
in  the  intellect  to  know  that  the  world  is  one  thing,  that 
all  things  belong,  not  to  any  different  thing,  but  to  one 
and  the  same  subject.  The  intellect  is  by  nature  the  abso- 
lute feeling  of  unity.  It  knows  of  itself  that  everything 
is  interrelated  and  that  the  consciousness  of  causality  is 
nothing  else  but  the  consciousness  of  cosmic  interrelation. 
And  I  maintain  that  the  innateness  of  the  consciousness  of 
cosmic  interrelation  in  our  brain  is  explained  when  we 
realize  that  it  is  an  actual  thing  like  all  others,  a  phenom- 
enon which  has  the  same  general  nature  as  every  other 
phenomenon.* 

The  fact  is  undeniable  that  a  certain  knowledge  is  in- 
nate in  our  consciousness.  The  only  difficulty  has  been 
to  explain  this  fact.  At  this  point  I  call  your  attention  to 
the  exaggerated  notion  entertained  in  regard  to  explain- 
ing, and  understanding,  things.  By  explanations,  a  thing 
is  not  dissolved,  but  only  classified. 

The  hatching  of  an  egg  ^  explained  when  you  per- 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


267 


T 


•e.  g.     That  of  natural  existence. — Editor. 


ceive  that  this  process  is  part  and  parcel  of  a  whole 
class  of  similar  processes.     If  you  modify  the  exalted 
idea  of  the  effect  of  explanations  in  this  sense,  you  must 
realize  that  the  innate  consciousness  of  the  general  in- 
terrelation of  things  is  natural  and  intelligible  and  re- 
quires no  other  explanation   than  the  humidity   of  the 
water,  the  gravity  of  bodies,  or  the  color  of  black  horses. 
Even  after  it  has  been  explained  and  understood,  the 
intellect  with  its  logic  remains  a  wonderful  thing.     Just 
as  clay  is  by  its  nature  untransparent  and  pliable,  or  glass 
transparent  and  brittle,  so  consciousness  has  its  peculiar 
innate  qualities.    In  this  way  knowledge  comes  to  the  in- 
tellect not  only  bv  experience,  but  it  is  also  a  sort  of  re- 
ceptacle full  of  wisdom.     Still  this  receptacle  would  no 
more  contain  wisdom  without  experience  than  the  eye 
would  have  impressions  without  light. 

In  order  to  straighten  out  the  intricate  windings  of 
our  subject,  I  recapitulate  them.     We  wish  to  learn  the 
proper  use  of  our  intellect,  the  conscious  application  of 
consciousness.    To  this  end  we  analyze  its  hitherto  hidden 
mystical  nature.     So  long  as  we  exalt  this  nature  trans- 
cendentallv  to  the  clouds,  we  do  not  acquire  its  proper 
use.    Therefore  the  first  paragraph  of  our  lesson  reads : 
The  intellect  belongs  in  the  same  category  with  all  things 
of  the  universe.    And  the  second  paragraph  says :    If  we 
distinguish  two  classes  of  thought  radiated  by  the  human 
intellect,  viz.,  innate  thoughts,  such  as  causality,  and  on 
the  other  hand  thoughts  which  come  through  experience, 
we  must  remember  that  such  a  distinction  is  correct  only 
when  we  realize  that  in  spite  of  this  classification  in  two 
kinds  they  really  belong  to  the  same  kind.     Innate  and 
acquired  wisdom,  though  served  on  two  different  plates, 
still  are  taken  from  the  same  general  world  dish. 


'\' 


2G8 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


'^fi9 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


From  this  it  follows  that  the  science  of  causality, 
though  applicable  to  all  the  phenomena  of  the  world,  does 
not  apply  to  the  universe.  If  it  is  a  fact  that  all  wisdom 
is  worldly,  then  one  must  not  fly  outside  of  the  world  with 
the  concept  of  causality. 

This  is  the  salient  point  at  issue. 

All  things  are  one  thing,  are  interdependent,  stand 
in  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  toward  one  another,  or 
of  genus  and  species.  To  say  that  all  things  have  a  cause 
means  that  they  have  a  mother.  The  fact  that  every 
mother  has  a  mother  finds  its  final  ending  in  the  w^orld 
mother  or  mother  world,  which  is  absolute  and  mother- 
less and  contains  all  mothers  in  its  womb.  \ 

Causes  are  mothers,  effects  are  daughters.  Every  ^ 
daughter  has  not  only  a  mother,  grand-mother,  and  great- 
grand-mother,  but  also  a  father,  grand-father,  and  great- 
grand-father.  The  origin,  or  the  family  relationship,  of 
a  daughter  is  not  one-sided,  but  all-sided.  In  the  same 
way  all  things  have  not  one,  but  many  causes  which  flow 
together  in  the  general  cause. 

The  intellect  which  has  the  innate  knowledge  that 
everything  has  its  cause  will  accept  the  teaching  that  all 
causes  in  the  world  are  founded  in  the  absolute  world 
cause  anad  must  return  to  it.  It  is  the  quintessence  of 
logic  not  only  to  ascertain  the  true  nature  of  the  intellect, 
but  also  to  elucidate  the  nature  of  the  universe  bv  the 
help  of  the  intellect. 

All  things  have  a  mother,  but  to  expect  that  the  world 
mother  should  logically  have  a  mother  is  to  carry  logic 
to  extremities  and  to  misunderstand  the  intellect  and  its 
art  of  reasoning. 

If  you  have  recognized  the  faculty  of  understanding 
as  a  part  of  existence,  you  will  not  wonder  at  its  miracu- 


I 


lousness.  Existence  is  wonderful.  Its  parts  arise  one  out 
of  the  other,  out  of  the  universal  interrelations  of  the  one 
world.  They  all  have  their  predecessors  and  causes.  But 
what  is  true  of  the  relative  parts,  is  not  true  of  the  abso- 
lute whole. 

I  am  the  son  of  my  father  and  the  father  of  my  son, 
I  am  at  the  same  time  father  and  son.  In-  the  same  way 
all  things  are  simultaneously  cause  and  effect.  Although 
father  and  son  are  two  different  persons,  still  the  capacity 
of  being  father  and  son  rest  in  the  same  person,  and  al- 
though cause  and  effect  are  to  be  distinguished  as  two 
things,  still  they  are  two  relations  of  the  same  thing. 
Persons  and  things,  causes  and  effects,  are  not  indepen- 
dent entities,  but  relative  entities,  are  interconnections  or 
relations  of  the  absolute. 

The  intellect  is  innate  in  us,  and  with  it  and  through 
it  also  the  consciousness  of  being,  although  it  is  innate  in 
us  only  as  the  teeth  of  the  child  which  grow  after  birth. 
Everything  that  we  become  aware  of  is  known  only  as  a 
part  of  the  universe.  In  so  far  as  this  is  wonderful,  the 
consciousness  of  causality  is  miraculous.  But,  in  fact, 
the  knowledge  of  the  causality  of  al!  things  is  innate  wis- 
dom the  same  as  that  of  the  color  of  ail  white  and  black 
horses.  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  observed  that  every 
innate  knowledge  is  in  part  acquired,  and  every  acquired 
knowledge  in  part  innate,  so  that  both  kinds  intermingle 
and  form  one  category. 

My  whole  argument  aims  to  convince  you  that  all 
things  are  worldly  things,  and  their  causality  is  only  an- 
other name  for  the  same  thing,  just  as  the  German  brot 
is  called  pain  in  French  and  bread  in  English.  Thus  we 
derive  the  firm  conviction  that  if  there  is  pain  in  heaven 
there  will  be  bread,  and  if  there  are  things,  there  will  be 


"i; 


:o 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


causes  and  effects,  or  interrelation  with  the  unit  of  ex- 
istence. 

The  mystery  of  causaHty  is  sometimes  expressed  by 
the  statement  that  we  possess  the  indubitable  knowledge 
which  extends  beyond  all  experience  that  wherever  a 
change  takes  place  there  must  have  preceded  another 
change.  Indeed,  we  have  the  faculty  of  recognizing  the 
unity  in  the  infinite  multiplicity,  and  infinite  multiplicity 
in  the  unity.  Multiplicity,  change,  motion — who  is  to 
split  hairs  about  them,  who  will  make  fine  distinctions? 
The  intellect  is  the  photographic  organ  of  the  infinite  mo- 
tion and  transformations  called  the  "world."*  It  is  and 
possesses  the  consciousness  of  cosmic  changes.  Is  it  a 
w^onder  that  it  knows  that  there  is  interrelation  in  its 
things,  that  no  part  of  the  world,  not  a  particle  of  its  mo- 
tion and  transformations,  stands  alone  by  itself,  that 
everything  is  connected  and  mutually  dependent  in  and 
with  the  universe?  Because  this  understanding  is  in  a 
way  innate  in  the  intellect,  therefore  it  understands  that 
there  is  nothing  but  change,  infinitely  proceeding  trans- 
formations. And  if  it  detaches  any  single  thing  from  this 
process,  it  knows  that  changes  preceded  it  and  changes 
will  follow. 

In  short,  we  must  not  marvel  at  any  single  part  of 
nature,  not  even  at  the  intellect,  but  admire  the  whole 
universe.  Then  fetishism  will  at  last  end  and  a  true  cult, 
the  cult  of  world  truth,  can  begin. 

The  art  of  thinking,  my  dear  Eugene,  is  not  so  easy. 
For  this  reason  I  keep  on  warning  you  against  misunder- 
standing. I  do  not  mean  to  advise  you  with  the  forego- 
ing against  admiring  any  single  part  of  nature,  or  of  art, 
a  landscape  or  a  statue.  My  teaching  merely  tends  to 
moderate  admiration  by  the   reflection   that  the   whole 


«•••••  • 


LETTERS  OX   LOGIC 


271 


world  is  wonderful,  that  cvcr>1;lnng  is  beautiful,  so  that 
nothing  ugly  remains.  The  distinction  between  beautiful 
and  ugly  is  only  relative.  Even  when  I  say  that  the  true 
worship  of  God,  the  cult  of  truth,  cannot  begin  until  idol 
worship  ceases,  you  will  appreciate  the  phrase  and  will 
not  insinuate  that  I  do  not  value  the  cultivation  of  science 
in  the  past,  or  that  I  hate  idol  worship  to  the  extent  of 
forgetting  what  I  have  emphasized  repeatedly,  viz.,  that 
idol  worship  is  also  worship  of  God,  and  error  a  paving 
stone  on  the  way  toward  truth.  The  most  minute  thing 
is  a  magnitude.  Everything  is  true,  good,  and  beautiful, 
for  the  universe  is  absolute  truth,  beauty  and  goodness. 
I  conclude  with  the  words  of  Fr.  von  Sallet : 

A  sunny  view  of  world  and  life 

Is  balm  for  brain  and  heart. 
It  is  with  health  and  beauty  rife, 

With  noblest  works  of  art. 
But  do  not  for  a  moment  think 
That  it  is  captured  in  a  wink. 
The  golden  harvest  does  not  grow. 
Unless  the  early  tempests  blow. 
And  only  bitter  woe  and  strain 
Will  bright  and  lofty  wisdom  gain. 


SEVENTEENTH  LETTER. 


My  subject,  dear  Eugene,  is  the  simplest  in  the  world, 
but  it' requires  thorough  treatment  for  all  its  full  under- 
standing. So  every  letter  is  in  a  way  but  a  repetition  of 
the  same  argument.     "It  is  remarkable,"  says  Schopen- 


272 


LKTTERS  OX   r.OC.IC 


hauer,  "that  we  find  the  few  main  theses  of  pre-socralic 
philosophy  repeated  innumerable  times.  Also  in  tlie 
works  of  modern  thinkers,  such  as  Cartesius,  Spinoza, 
Leibniz,  and  even  Kant,  we  find  that  their  few  main 
theses  are  repeated  over  and  over." 

Now  I  ask  you  to  consider  what  I  said  in  my  first  let- 
ters, viz.,  that  the  titles  of  the  principal  philosophical 
works  reveal  that  philosophy  is  engaged  in  the  study  of 
logic,  in  the  analysis  of  the  intellect  and  the  art  of  its  use. 
You  will  then  recognize  that  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
subject  my  presentation  of  the  matter  lacks  systematiza- 
tion.  It  has  no  real  beginning  and  end,  because  its  object, 
the  intellect,  is  interconnected  with  the  whole  universe, 
which  is  without  beginning  and  end,  which  has  neither 
before  nor  after,  neither  above  nor  below. 

You  may  venture  that  the  relation  of  the  intellect  to 
the  universe  does  not  concern  the  intellect  especially,  but 
is  a  universal  matter.    That  would  be  true. 

But  it  is  easy  to  show  that  the  art  of  thinking  and  wis- 
dom of  the  world  are  identical.  And  although  the  uni- 
versal interrelation  of  things  is  germain  to  all  things  and 
subjects,  yet  its  consideration  is  a  special  task  of  logic 
which  treats  all  objects  of  thought  summarily. 

My  subject  therefore  begins  everywhere,  even 
'  though  it  is  a  specialty.  Hence  I  take  the  liberty  to 
take  my  departure  from  any  literature  which  I  happen 
to  study.  In  the  present  letter,  I  deal  with  "logical 
investigations"  of  the  prominent  Professor  Trendelen- 
burg. His  is  a  bulky  volume,  but  you  need  not  fear 
that  I  shall  weary  you  with  its  subtleties.  As  a  rule  I 
read  only  the  preface  of  philosophical  works  of  the 
second  and  third  order,  their  introduction  and  per- 
haps the  first  few  chapters.    Then  I  am  aj) proximately 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


273 


informed  as  to  what  I  may  expect  from  them  further 
on.  One^  frequently  finds  statements  which,  if  they 
do  not  throw  new  light  on  the  subject,  still  bring  out 
in  bolder  relief  some  of  the  accomplishments  of  his- 
torical research  in  our  field.  And  in  order  that  the  son 
may  not  trust  to  the  father  alone,  which  might  lead 
to  distrust,  I  connect  my  argument  with  some  state- 
ments of  Trendelenburg. 

In  the  preface  to  the  second  edition  the  author 
complains  of  the  "dull  headache"  which  the  Hegelian 
intoxication  has  left  in  Germany  and  says:  "Phi- 
losophy will  not  resume  its  old  power  until  it  be- 
comes consistent,  and  it  will  not  become  consistent 
until  it  grows  in  the  same  way  that  all  other  sciences 
do.  In  other  words,  it  must  not  take  a  new  departure 
in  every  brain  and  then  quit,  but  it  must  approach  its 
problems  historically  and  develop  them.  The  German 
prejudice  must  be  abandoned,  according  to  which  the 
philosophy  of  the  future  is  supposed  to  look  for  a  new 
principle.  This  principle  has  already  been  found.  It 
consists  in  the  organic  world  conception,  the  funda- 
ments of  which  are  resting  in  Plato  and  Aristotle." 

The  Professor  is  right,  but  he  overlooks  that  the 
philosophers,  even  of  modern  times,  do  not  begin 
"each  on  his  own  account,"  do  not  have  "each  his  own 
principle,"  or  if  they  have,  such  a  "false  originality" 
is  but  the  indifferent  attribute  of  historical  develop- 
ment which  has  handed  the  object  of  logic,  the  true 
art  of  thought,  from  generation  to  generation  in  an 
ever  brighter  condition. 

I  repeat  this  emphatically  for  pedagogic  reasons, 
because  I  consider  it  essential  to  convince  you  and  the 
reader  that  the  apparent  paradoxes  which  I  state  are 


274 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


the  objects  of  discussion  since  time  immemorial.  I 
also  wish  to  stimulate  you  to  a  study  of  the  master 
works  of  philosophy  which  show  the  cheering  spec- 
tacle, in  the  persons  of  the  most  brilliant  specimens  of 
the  human  mind,  of  the  onward  march  of  this  mind 
from  darkness  to  light. 

In  order  that  the  wheat  contained  in  this  human  treas- 
ure box  may  not  be  concealed  by  the  tares,  I  am  endeavor- 
ing to  throw  light  on  the  outcome  of  the  historical  devel- 
opment of  philosophy,  and  for  this  purpose  I  continue  to 
discuss  the  question  by  taking  my  departure  in  this  in- 
stance from  some  further  statements  of  Trendelenburg. 

"It  is  a  peculiarity  of  philosophical  methods  of  rea- 
soning to  recognize  a  part  in  the  whole,  and  it  is  tacitly 
assumed  that  the  whole  is  descended  from  a  thought 
which  determines  the  parts.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  pecu- 
liar to  empirical  methods  of  analysis  to  study  the  parts 
without  regard  to  their  interrelation,  or  at  best  to  collect 
them  and  put  them  together,  and  it  is  tacitly  assumed  that 
everv  point  is  something  peculiar  in  itself  which  must  be 
studied  apart  from  all  the  rest." 

'The  aim  of  all  human  understanding  is  always  to 
solve  the  miracle  of  divine  creation  by  further  creative 
thought.  When  this  task  is  undertaken  in  detail,  the  de- 
tail study  forces  one  on  to  other  things :  for  things  must 
go  backwards  toward  their  dissolution  by  the  same  force 
through  which  they  arose  out  of  the  depths." 

These  sentences  state  the  problem  before  us.  Shall 
we  use  the  intellect  philosophically,  or  shall  we  use  it 
empirically?  We  are  striving  to  understand  the  parts 
and  the  whole,  and  tliis  is  identical  with  the  research  aft:r 
a  systematical  world  philosophy,  or  with  the  art  of  dia- 
lectics. 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


275 


Now  we  must  state  in  the  first  place  that  thinking  of 
any  kind,  whether  it  be  philosophical  or  empirical,  is  of 
the  same  species,  that  the  same  kernel  is  contained  in  both 
forms.  Roses  are  different  flowers  from  carnations,  but 
the  flower  nature  is  in  both  of  them.  Thus  the  nature  of 
thought  is  contained  in  both  philosophical  and  empirical 
thinking.  The  distinction  is  well  enough,  but  their  unity 
must  not  be  lost  sight  of. 

The  philosophers,  he  says,  seek  to  understand  the  de- 
tail by  the  whole:  the  empirical  thinkers  analyze  the 
details  without  regard  to  interrelations.  But  both  methods 
of  research  are  different  specimens  of  the  same  genus,  and 
both  of  them  are  one-sided  wdien  their  interconnection  is 
overlooked.  The  empirical  thinker  w^ho  seeks  to  under- 
stand the  details  in  their  isolation,  thinks  philosophically, 
when  he  regards  his  special  research  as  a  contribution  to 
the  whole,  and  the  philosopher,  who  seeks  to  understand 
the  detail  by  the  whole,  thinks  empirically  when  he  rightly 
regards  all  details  as  attributes  of  the  whole. 

Trendelenburg,  then,  has  expressed  his  case  very 
obscurely.  Both  methods  of  study,  if  employed  one- 
sidedly,  entirely  misconceive  the  art  of  thinking.  The 
philosophers  err  when  they  regard  the  intellect  as  the  only 
source  of  understanding  and  truth;  it  is  only  a  part  of 
truth  and  must  be  supplemented  by  all  the  rest  of  the 
world.  On  the  other  hand,  the  empirical  thinkers  err 
when  they  look  for  understanding  and  truth  exclusively 
in  the  outer  world,  without  taking  into  account  the  intel- 
lectual instrument  by  the  help  of  which  they  lift  their 
treasures.  In  fact,  such  one-sided  philosophers  exist  only 
in  theory ;  I  mean  there  are  some  who  imagine  that  truth 
could  be  one-sided.  But  in  practice  they  all  testify,  much 
against  their  will,  to  the  inevitable  interconnection  of  mat- 


276 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


ter  and  mind,  of  Inside  and  outside.  In  the  practical  use 
of  the  intellect  everybody  shows  that  the  part  operates 
in  the  whole,  and  that  the  whole  is  active  in  its  parts. 

We  know  a  priori  that  the  universe  is  a  whole.  The 
universal  existence  can  be  conceived  only  as  of  one  kind 
or  nature.  The  mere  thought  that  there  might  be  some- 
thing which  does  not  partake  of  the  nature  of  the  universe 
is  no  thought,  because  it  is  a  thought  without  sense  or 
reason.  The  whole  world  is  the  supreme  being,  though  I 
grant  that  we  have  but  a  vague  conception  of  it.  We 
have  as  yet  no  detailed,  true,  conception  of  the  universe, 
but  it  is  gradually  acquired  in  the  course  of  science.  Still, 
our  conception  will  never  be  perfect  because  details  are 
infinitesimal  and  the  absolute  being  is  infinite  growth. 

As  to  details,  we  know  them  more  or  less  accurately 
and  yet  not  accurately,  because  even  the  most  minute  part 
of  the  infinite  is  infinite.  All  science  has  searched  in  vain 
for  atoms.  What  our  understanding  knows,  has  always 
been  nothing  but  predicates  or  attributes  of  truth, 
although  they  are  true  attributes  and  are  truly  understood 

by  us. 

I  emphasize  the  inadequacy  of  all  modes  of  thought 
and  of  all  understanding  in  opposition  to  those  who  make 
an  idol  of  science.  I  emphasize  the  truth  of  all  perceptions 
in  opposition  to  those  knownothings  who  claim  that  truth 
cannot  be  understood,  but  can  only  be  admired  and 
worshipped.  Hence  it  follows  for  our  theory  of  under- 
standing that  intellect  and  reason  and  the  art  of  thought 
are  no  independent  treasure  boxes  which  make  any  reve- 
lations to  us.  They  are  theoretical  classifications  which  in 
practice  are  operative  only  in  the  universal  interconnection 
of  things.  Understanding,  perceiving,  judging,  distin- 
guishing and  concluding,  etc.,  are  unable  to  produce  any 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


277 


truths.  They  can  only  enlighten  and  clarify  experience 
by  logical  classification  and  distinction.  Because  man 
produces  works  which  are  preceded  by  planning,  there- 
fore the  philosophical  mode  of  research  has  "assumed 
that  the  whole  is  descended  from  a  thought."  But  this 
is  an  assumption  of  human  origin,  which  is  shown  to  be 
without  foundation  on  closer  analysis.  The  plans  of  our 
works  are  copies  of  natural  originals  and  are  "free  crea- 
tions of  the  mind"  only  in  a  limited  sense.  The  artists 
are  well  aware  of  the  natural  descent  of  their  thoughts 
and  fictions.  To  regard  the  world  as  the  outcome  of 
thought  is  a  perverse  logic.  It  is  the  first  condition  of 
rational,  proletarian,  thought  to  recognize  the  intellect 
and  its  products  as  attributes  of  the  world  subject. 


EIGHTEENTH    LETTER 


Just  as  in  political  history  action  and  reaction  follow 
one  another,  just  as  periods  of  economic  prosperity  are 
alternated  by  periods  of  depression,  so  we  find  in  litera- 
ture a  periodical  flucuation  between  philosophical  and 
anti-philosophical  tendencies. 

After  Hegel  had  for  a  time  thoroughly  aroused  the 
spirits,  a  time -of  apathy  followed,  so  that  this  hero  of 
thought  who  shortly  before  had  been  almost  idolized  could 
be  attacked  and  reviled.  For  about  a  decade,  a  philo- 
sophical breeze  has  now  once  more  been  blowing.  The 
subject  of  logic,  the  theory  of  understanding,  is  again  the 
object  of  universal  attention.  This  movement  is  stimu- 
lated by  important  discoveries  in  science,  such  as  the  heat 
equivalent  of  Robert  Mayer,  the  origin  of  species  by  Dar- 


278i 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


win,  etc.,  and  natural  science  and  philosophy  may  be  com- 
pared to  two  miners  who  are  digging  a  tunnel,  so  that 
sharp  ears  on  both  sides  can  hear  the  blows  of  the  ham- 
mers and  the  clanging  of  the  tools. 

There  is  much  truth  in  this  picture,  but  it  may  also 
lead  to  misunderstandings.  By  the  vivisection  of  frogs 
and  rabbits,  by  boring  into  the  brain,  physiology  will  not 
discover  the  mind.  No  microscope,  no  telescope,  will 
reveal  the  nature  of  reason  and  truth  or  the  art  of  logical 

discernment. 

Neither  will  Lazarre  Geiger,  Max  Miiller,  Steinthal, 
and  Noire  succeed  in  philology  in  solving  the  "last  ques- 
tions of  all  knowledge"  by  the  help  of  any  primitive  arch- 
language. 

At  the  same  time,  the  value  of  the  co-operation  of 
these  gentlemen  is  not  denied,  only  I  desire  to  point  out 
that  the  comparison  with  the  tunnel  is  not  quite  accurate. 
What  Marx  said  of  economic  formulas,  is  true  of  logical 
formulas :  "In  their  analysis  neither  the  microscope  nor 
chemical  reagents  are  of  any  service.  The  power  of 
abstraction  must  replace  them  both." 

The  two  sciences  will  finally  meet,  not  because  each 
one  of  them  digs  away  in  its  own  one-sided  fashion,  but 
because  the  miners  meet  after  working  hours  and  ex- 
change their  experiences.  And  the  philosophers  may  be 
the  dominant  party,  because  they  are  specialists  in  logic 
and  therefore  prepared  to  utilize  anything  which  may 
serve  their  purpose,  no  matter  from  what  side  it  comes. 
The  other  party,  on  the  other  hand,  has  its  own  specialties 
and  promotes  the  cause  of  logic  in  a  secondary  and  invol- 
untary fashion. 

Natural  science  has  its  own  monism  which  is  dis- 
tinguished from  philosophical  proletarian  monism  in  that 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


279 


it  does  not  appreciate  the  historical  outcome  of  philosoph- 
ical research.  One  of  the  most  prominent  representatives 
of  the  former  is  Noire.  He  entitles  one  of  his  little  works 
''Monistic  Thought,"  but  shows  himself  on  its  pages  as  a 
very  unclear  dualist.  He  speaks  of  the  "dual  nature  of 
causality"  and  relates  that  the  mind  operates  with  a  differ- 
ent causality  than  the  mere  mechanical  one.  He  calls  this 
other  "sensory  causality." 

According  to  him  the  world  has  only  two  attributes: 
"Motion  and  sensation  are  the  only  true  and  objective 
qualities  of  the  world.  .  .  .  Motion  is  the  truly 
objective  .  .  .  though  it  is  admitted  that  it  gives  us 
only  the  phenomenon.  .  .  .  Sensation  makes  up  the 
internal  nature  of  things.  Every  subject,  whether  man  or 
atom,  is  endowed  with  the  two  qualities  of  all  beings,  viz., 
motion  and  sensation." 

Thereupon  I  have  carefully  looked  for  an  explanation 
in  Noire's  works,  why  he  regards  the  nature  of  things  as 
composed  of  an  external  and  an  internal  quality,  and  why 
sensation  should  not  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  motion,  but 
the  only  reason  I  could  find  was  the  dualistic  nature  of  his 
"monistic"  reasoning. 

As  Schopenhauer  provided  the  whole  world  with  a 
"will,"  so  Noire  provides  it  with  ''sensation." 

Kant  and  his  "Critical  Philosophy"  held  in  their  time 
that  our  intellect  perceives  only  the  phenomena  of  nature, 
while  the  mystic  law  of  causality,  according  to  him.  points 
to  a  hidden  being,  which  cannot  be  perceived  but  must  be 
believed,  which  we  may  venerate  but  must  leave  undis- 
turbed by  science.  Schopenhauer,  his  brilliant  successor, 
who  in  spite  of  his  brilliancy  did  not  materially  advance 
the  cause  of  philosophy,  mystified  the  problem  of  causality 
by  his  discovery  that  the  nature  of  the  world  is  will  power. 


280 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


These  teachings  of  Kant  and  Schopenhauer  are  dressed 
up  anew  and  mixed  with  the  recent  discoveries  of  science 
by  Noire.  But  he  entirely  ignores  the  work  of  SchelHng 
and  Hegel,  who  by  their  criticisms  have  made  evident  the 
lack  of  logic  in  the  Kantian  separation  of  phenomenon 
(apparition)   from  noumenoti   (essence),  of  cause  from 

effect. 

You  are  familiar  with  the  silly  question  wnether 
Goethe  or  Schiller,  Shakespere  or  Byron,  is  the  greater 
poet,  and  you  will  not  think  that  I  am  trying  to  elevate 
Hegel  above  Kant  or  Kant  above  Hegel.  They  are  just 
two  cogs  on  the  spinning  wheel  of  history.  If  the  second 
crushes  what  the  first  has  cracked,  such  is  the  result  of 
their  succession. 

Natural  science  is  also  a  valuable  co-operator  m  the 
solution  of  the  world  problem,  not  so  much  by  digging  in 
the  logical  tunnel  itself,  or  making  amateur  excursions 
into  the  fields  of  philosophy  or  metaphysics,  but  because  it 
elucidates  and  renders  tangible  the  special  object  of  logic 
in  such  far-embracing  objects  as  the  unity  of  natural 
forces  or  of  animal  species.  The  scientific  presentation  of 
this  special  object,  however,  requires  a  brain  armed  with 
the  full  equipment  of  the  historical  outcome  of  philosophy. 

Now  you  must  not  believe  that  I  am  conceited  enough 
to  place  my  own  little  personality  on  the  pedestal  as  the 
only  true  philosopher.  I  am  too  well  aware  of  my  short- 
comings as  a  self-educated  man.  But  seeing  that  I  have 
striven  earnestly  and  without  prejudice  since  my  young 
days  to  understand  the  high  object  of  my  studies,  I  feel  in 
my  heart  a  certain  confidence  in  my  qualification  to  deal 
with  it.  On  the  other  hand,  I  know  my  lack  of  that  sort 
of  learning  which  is  required  in  order  to  be  able  to  present 
the  scientifically  much-courted  nature  of  the  human  mind 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


281 


in  such  a  form  and  with  such  emphasis  as  its  sublime 
character  deserves.  And  if  I,  nevertheless,  come  before 
the  public  on  various  occasions  with  my  tentative  works,  I 
offer  as  an  excuse  that  hitherto  the  Messiah  has  not  ap- 
peared who  will  come  after  me  and  whose  John  the  Bap- 
tist I  should  like  to  be. 

You,  my  dear  Eugene,  will  take  me  soberly  and  reduce 
my  resounding  words  to  their  proper  measure,  when  I,  in 
the  intoxication  of  enthusiasm,  flow  over  like  that  now 
and  then.  You  know  that  I  am  no  hero  worshipper. 
Though  all  research  is  but  the  product  of  individual 
minds,  the  mind  of  each  man  is  a  part  of  the  universal 
mind  which  produces  science.  Now  follows  the  point 
which  forms  the  conclusion  of  all  my  letters :  The  intel- 
lect which  produces  science  is  indeed  a  part  of  man,  but 
still  more  a  part  of  the  world,  it  is  the  universal  world 
intellect,  the  reason  of  the  absolute,  the  absolute  reason. 

The  study  of  this  intellect  at  work,  not  merely  in  shoe- 
making,  in  anatomy,  or  in  astronomy,  but  in  all  fields,  in 
the  infinite,  of  its  life  in  the  absolute,  is  the  means  by 
which  the  art  of  logic  is  acquired.  It  is  true  that  the  in- 
finite exists  only  in  finite  parts,  and  you  cannot  conceive 
of  the  infinite  directly,  you  can  perceive  it  only  in  its  parts. 
And  in  perceiving  them  you  must  always  remember  that 
every  part  is  an  infinite  piece  of  the  infinite  universe. 

In  his  "Introduction  and  Proofs  of  a  Monistic  Theory 
of  Understanding,"  Noire,  after  enumerating  the  new 
points  contained  in  his  work,  adds  sneeringly  that  he  is 
"not  in  a  position  to  give  any  new  clews  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  absolute."  For  this  very  reason  I  want  to  denounce 
his  "Monism"  as  a  shallow  piece  of  work,  which  offers 
only  the  name  instead  of  the  essence. 

The  well-known  Ernst  Hseckel  knows  a  great  deal 


282 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


more  about  this  subject.  In  a  lecture  given  at  the  twenty- 
fifth  convention  of  natural  scientists  in  Eisenach,  he  calls 
the  monistic  view  of  nature  "a  grand  pantheistic  one." 
The  essence  of  all  religion,  according  to  him,  consists  in 
the  "conviction  of  a  final  and  unmistakably  common  cause 
of  all  things."  And  he  continues:  "In  the  admission 
that  with  the  present  day  organization  of  our  brain,  we 
are  unable  to  penetrate  to  the  final  cause  of  all  things,  the 
critical  natural  philosophy  and  dogmatic  religion  agree." 
Whether  the  professor  is  one  of  those  natural  philos- 
ophers who  regard  the  human  mind  as  too  narrow  for  the 
understanding  of  the  "unmistakably  (hence  somewhat 
understood)  common  cause  of  all  things,"  is  not  quite 
clear  to  me,  nor  probably  to  the  famous  scientist  himself. 
For  he  adds :  "The  more  we  progress  in  the  understand- 
ing of  nature,  the  more  we  approach  that  unattainable 
final  cause."  And  further  on :  "The  purest  form  of  mon- 
istic faith  culminates  in  the  conviction  of  the  unity  of  God 
and  nature." 

Now  I  ask:  If  nature,  God,  and  absolute  truth  are 
one  and  the  same  thing,  have  we  not  learned  something 
about  the  "final  cause  of  all  things?"  What  necessity  is 
there  in  that  case  for  speaking  in  such  an  abjectedly  hum- 
ble tone  of  human  understanding,  or  to  assign  nothing  but 
straw  and  husks  to  it,  in  the  language  of  Hegel  ? 

You  see,  then,  that  Haeckel  has  a  higher  estimate  of 
absolute  nature  than  Xoire  who  does  not  care  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  nature  of  the  absolute.  But  my 
object  at  this  moment  is  to  convince  you  that  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  of  these  two,  nor  natural  science,  so- 
called,  is  directly  digging  in  the  tunnel  which  will  give  us 
light  on  the  question  of  the  limits  of  our  understanding 
and  the  final  cause  of  things.     Our  logic,  on  the  other 


I 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


283 


hand,  which  treats  the  intellect  as  a  part  of  nature,  culti- 
vates a  natural  science  that  includes  the  mere  empirical 
natural  science  in  the  same  way  in  which  the  day  of 
twenty-four  hours  includes  the  day  of  twelve  hours  and 

the  night. 

Natural  science  proper  deals  mainly  with  tangible 
things.  Light  and  sound,  the  objects  of  eye  and  ear,  are 
still  included  in  its  studies.  The  objects  of  smell  and  taste 
stand  on  the  dividing  line.  But  the  socalled  sciences  of 
the  mind,  such  as  grammar  and  politics,  political  economy 
and  history,  morals  and  law,  and  most  decidedly  logic, 
are  entirely  excluded. 

Such  a  limitation  is  well  enough,  if  we  remember  that 
it  is  purely  formal.  However,  it  must  not  overlook  the 
bridge  which  leads  from  limited  nature  to  universal,  in- 
finite, nature. 

The  monism  of  natural  science  has  a  far  too  narrow 
view  of  the  universe.  When  it  says  that  "all  is  motion," 
it  says  just  as  little  or  as  much  as  Solomon  with  his  "all 
is  vain."  Everything  is  crooked  and  straight,  everything 
great  and  small,  everything  temporal  and  eternal,  every- 
thing truth  and  life.  But  nothing  is  thus  said  to  show  the 
meaning  of  distinction  in  this  world,  to  explain  how  rest 
exists  in  motion,  and  sense  in  nonsense. 

In  order  to  differentiate  logically  we  must  know  that 
everything  is  everything,  that  the  universe  or  absolute  is 
its  own  cause  and  the  final  cause  of  all  things,  which  em- 
braces all  distinctions,  even  that  of  causality  and  that  be- 
tween matter  and  mind. 


NINETEENTH   LETTER 

"Philosophy    should   not   try   to   be    edifying,"    said 


\i\ 


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285 


Hegel.  This  means  that  rehgious  feehng  is  far  below 
scientific  thought.  But  there  is  a  reverse  side  to  this  sen- 
tence, viz.,  that  thoughts  which  do  not  rise  to  the  edifying 
interconnection  of  all  things,  no  matter  whether  they  re- 
main stuck  in  some  specialty  on  account  of  frivolousness 
or  of  narrowmindedness,  are  far  below  a  wise  world  phil- 
osophy. 

In  a  former  letter  I  have  already  emphasized,  and  I 
hope  to  prove  it  more  convincingly,  that  the  conception  of 
"God,"  or  of  the  absolute,  is  indispensable  for  a  logical 
world  philosophy. 

You  know  that  in  my  dictionary  the  gods  and  divinities 
of  all  rehgions  and  denominations  are  "idols,"  and  justly 
so,  since  they  are  all  manufactured  images.  Instead  of 
the  entire  universe,  they  worship  a  more  or  less  unessen- 
tial part  of  it. 

The  religions  show  by  their  idolatry,  the  sciences  fre- 
quently by  their  little  creditable  indifference,  that  they 
have  no  conception  of  the  intellect  and  its  art  of  reason- 
ing. 

The  universe  is  a  familiar  conception.  Everybody 
uses  it,  and  there  is  apparently  little  to  say  about  it.  But 
in  fact  it  is  the  conception  of  all  conceptions,  the  being  of 
all  beings,  the  cause  of  itself  which  has  no  other  cause 
and  no  other  being  beside  itself.  That  the  whole  world 
is  contained  in  the  universe  is  so  obvious  that  you  may 
wonder  at  my  waste  of  words  over  such  a  matter-of-fact 
thing.  But  when  you  consider  that  the  people  have 
always  searched  for  a  world  cause  outside  of  the  world, 
together  with  a  beginning  of  the  world  and  a  transcen- 
dental truth,  then  you  will  see  that  they  have  not  grasped 
the  conception  of  the  world  as  a  whole,  as  a  universe. 
And  if  that  is  admitted,  then  the  proof  that  it  is  the  cause 


of  all  causes,  the  beginning  of  all  beginnings,  and  the 
truth  of  all  truths,  is  not  such  a  superfluous  undertaking. 
Now  you  may  say  that  it  is  presumptuous  to  try  to 
understand  the  whole  universe  at  once.    This  objection  is 
justified  in  a  way,  according  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
words.   Still  I  hope  that  it  will  be  my  justification  to  de- 
clare that  it  is  not  a  question  of  understanding  the  uni- 
verse in  detail,  but  only  in  general,  not  each  and  every- 
thing in  its  differentiation,  but  only  in  a  summary  way. 
And  it  is  only  the  edifying  conception  of  the  universe  as 
a  whole  which  will  open  for  you  the  door  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  human  mind,  of  thought,  and  the  art  of 
using  it.    We  wish  to  understand  the  conception ;  not  this 
or  that  conception,  but  the  whole  conception,  the  concep- 
tion of  the  whole.     You  will  no  longer  indulge  in  the 
superstition  that  the  faculty  of  thought  or  understanding 
is  a  thing  apart  from  the  world's  interconnection.    I  pre- 
sume that  you  have  now  learned  enough  about  the  art  of 
thought  to  be  sure  not  to  think  of  anything  without  its 
worldwide  interrelation.     For  so  long  as  one  imagines 
that  a  piece  of  wood  or  a  stone  is  a  thing  in  itself,  without 
connection  with  light  and  air,  with  Earth,  Moon,  and  Sun, 
he  has  a  very  barbarian  conception  of  the  things  of  this 

world. 

I  maintain  that  the  understanding  of  the  human 
faculty  of  reason  and  the  art  of  its  use  are  inseparable 
from  the  world  concept.  And  I  want  this  understood  in 
the  sense,  that  it  is  not  a  mistake  to  distinguish  between 
the  internal  mind  and  the  outside  world,  but  that  these 
are  merely  formal  distinctions  of  the  essentially  indivisible 
and  absolute  universe. 

The  concept  of  this  true  God  or  divine,  because  uni- 
versal, Truth  shows  on  close  analysis  that  it  includes  the 


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BETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


special  truth  of  the  art  of  thought  as  well  as  all  other 
sciences,  and  pre-eminently  the  science  of  thought,  be- 
cause this  science  must  not  limit  itself  to  any  specia 
thing,  but  must  be  world  wisdom  by  its  very  will  and 

nature. 

To  understand  the  universe,  then,  means  to  become 
aware  that  this  being  of  all  beings  has  no  beginnmg,  no 
cause   no  truth  nor  reason  outside  and  beside  itself,  but 
has  everything  in  and  by  itself.    To  understand  the  uni- 
verse means  to  recognize  that  one  is  rushing  beyond  the 
worldly  infinity  into  the  realm  of  fantastic  transcenden- 
talism'and  abusing  the  intellect,  when  illogically  applymg 
such  terms  as  beginning  and  end,  cause  and  effect  being 
and  not  being,  to  the  absolute  universe.    Such  an  illogical 
use  of  the  faculty  of  thought  is  well  illustrated  and  re- 
buked  by  the  poet  who  ueestions  and  answers : 

"And  when  my  life  has  passed  away, 

What  will  become  of  me? 
The  world  has  one  eternal  day, 

'Thereafter'  cannot  be." 

In  order  to  acquire  the  universal  sense,  you  will  strive 
to  understand  that  the  universe  includes  all  relative  things, 
while  as  a  whole  it  embodies  the  absolute  or  the  edifying 

deitv.  . 

If  you  would  become  world-wise,  you  must  learn  that 
the  things  called  opposites  and  contradictions  have  a  dif- 
ferent meaning  than  is  ordinarily  applied  to  them  by  the 
logic  of  the  idolators.  They  say  that  God  and  the  world, 
body  and  soul,  truth  and  error,  life  and  death,  etc.,  are 
irreconcilable  antipodes ;  that  they  exclude  one  another ; 
that  thev  cannot  be  brought  under  the  same  roof,  but 


LETTERS  OX   EOGIC 


28; 


must  be  kept  wide  apart  by  the  laws  of  eternal  reason. 
But  this  doctrine  of  contradiction  is  merely  narrow  dog- 
matism, which  confuses  tlie  minds  instead  of  enlightening 
them.  Certainly,  death  differs  from  life,  the  perishable 
from  the  imperishable,  black  from  white,  crooked  from 
straight,  large  from  small.  Who  would  be  silly  enough 
to  deny  that  ?  But  even  the  apparently  most  contradictory 
and  opposite  things  may  be  classified  under  the  same 
genus,  family,  or  species,  as  twins  in  a  mother's  womb. 
The  same  thing  that  does  not  prevent  male  and  female 
from  sitting  in  the  same  nest,  does  not  prevent  the  most 
widely  different  things,  in  spite  of  their  separate  charac- 
ters, from  being  one  and  the  same,  from  being  two  pieces 
of  the  same  caliber.  You  are  certainly  still  the  same 
Eugene  that  you  were  as  a  little  baby,  and  yet  you  are  at 
the  same  time  another.  The  experts  in  physiology  even 
claim  that  they  can  compute  how  often  a  man  of  sixty  has 
changed  his  flesh,  bones,  skin,  and  hair.  Although  the 
old  man  is  the  same  individual  that  he  was  when  first 
born,  yet  he  never  remained  the  same. 

You  will  see  by  this  illustration  that  all  difference  is 
of  the  same  nature,  a  general,  supreme,  universal  being, 
absolute  and  divine,  and  this  absolute  world  being  is 
highly  edifying,  because  it  comprises  all  other  beings  and 
is  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  all  things. 

Is  this  world-god  a  mere  idea  ?  No,  it  is  the  truth  and 
life  itself.  And  it  is  very  interesting  to  note  that  the  so- 
called  "ontological  proof  of  the  existence  of  God"  agrees 
very  well  with  the  world  truth  which  I  proclaim  in  the 
tabernacle  of  logic.  This  proof  is  originally  attributed  to 
the  learned  Anselmo  of  Canterbury.  However  that  may 
be,  it  is  certain  that  Descartes  and  Spinoza  support  him 
with  their  famous  names.    They  hold  that  the  "most  per- 


\ 


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LETTERS  ON  EOGIC 


feet  being"  must  necessarily  have  existence,  because  other- 
wise it  would  not  be  the  most  perfect. 

"I  understood  very   well,"    writes    Descartes    in   the 
fourth  section  of  his  "Method  of  Correct  Thought,"  "that 
in  accepting  the  hypothesis  of  a  triangle  I  would  have  to 
accept  the  fact  that  the  sum  of  its  three  angles  is  equal 
to  two  right  angles.     But  nothing  convinced  me  of  the 
presence  of  such  a  triangle,  while  I  found  that  my  con- 
ception of  the  most  perfect  being  was  as   inseparably 
linked  to  existence  as  my  conception  of  a  triangle  is  to  the 
identity  of  the  suin  of  its  angles  with  two  right  angles. 
Hence  it  is  certainly  as  undeniable  as  any  geo- 
metrical proof  can  be  that  God  exists  as  this  most  perfect 

being." 

This  argument  appears  to  me  as  clear  as  daylight  and 
ought  to  convince  you,  not  of  the  existence  of  a  transcen- 
dental idol,  but  of  the  truth  of  the  absolute  and  most  per- 
fect world  being.  If  you  were  to  remark  that  this  per- 
fectness  is  not  so  very  great,  considering  its  many  obvious 
imperfections,  I  should  ask  you  not  to  split  hairs  and  to 
recognize  with  sane  senses  that  these  imperfections  of  the 
world  belong  as  logically  to  the  perfect  world  as  the  evil 
desires  belong  to  virtue  which  becomes  virtue  only  by  the 
test  of  overcoming  them.  The  conception  of  a  perfection 
which  has  no  imperfections  to  overcome  would  be  a  silly 

idea. 

Now  in  conclusion  let  me  say  a  few  words  of  apology 
for  continually  interchanging  the  universe  and  the  concept 
of  the  universe.  I  frequently  speak  of  the  idea  of  a  thing 
as  if  it  were  the  thing  itself.  But  see  here!  Do  you  not 
ask  on  seeing  the  portrait  of  some  person  unknown  to 
you :  Who  is  this  ?  And  do  you  not  interchange  the  por- 
trait for  the  person  itself,  without  difficulty  and  misunder- 


LETTERS  OX  LOGIC 


289 


Standing?  The  idea  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  the 
thing,  as  the  portrait  to  the  person  it  represents.  This  re- 
mark is  directed  against  that  unsound  logic  which  knows 
only  the  separation  of  the  idea  from  the  thing,  of  reason 
from  its  objects,  but  does  not  grasp  the  mere  formality 
of  such  a  distinction,  does  not  appreciate  the  unity  of  the 
world,  the  edifying  and  supreme  truth,  the  truth  of  the 
supreme  being. 

This  letter,  my  dear  Eugene,  pleads  for  edification,  but 
only  for  that  kind  of  edification  which  includes  the  unedi- 
fying,  whereby  edification  is  sobered  down.  If  you  would 
give  the  name  of  pantheism  to  this  world  philosophy,  you 
should  remember  that  it  is  not  a  sentimental  and  exalted, 
but  a  common  sense  pantheism,  a  deification  which  has  the 
taste  of  the  godless. 


TWENTIETH    LETTER 

Dear  Eugene: 

Today  I  am  going  to  present  my  case  with  the  pre- 
cision of  a  schoolmaster. 

The  concept  of  white  cabbage  embraces  all  white  cab- 
bage heads  that  ever  were  and  ever  will  be. 

The  concept  of  cabbage  embraces  red,  white,  and  many 
other  kinds  of  cabbage.  The  concept  of  vegetable 
embraces  a  still  wider  range.  The  organic  field  is  still 
more  comprehensive.  And  finally  the  world  concept  em- 
braces everything  which  we  know  and  don't  know,  the 
end  of  which  we  cannot  conceive,  and  which  therefore  is 
called  infinite. 

When  we  trace  our  steps  backward  over  the  same  rea- 
soning, we  find  at  once  that  the  universal  concept  is 


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LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


291 


divided  into  two  parts,  viz.,  the  universe  and  the  concep- 
tion of  it.  We  thus  find  the  world  in  the  concept  and  the 
concept  in  the  world,  so  that  both  of  these  parts  are  inter- 
connected, each  is  the  predicate  of  the  other,  and  whether 
we  turn  the  thing  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  the  concept 
is  in  the  world  and  the  world  in  the  concept. 

Now  it  is  true  that  the  concept,  or  the  faculty  of  under- 
standing, is  the  object  of  our  study  rather  than  the  world 
outside  of  it.  The  faculty  of  understanding,  by  the  way, 
is  nothing  but  a  collective  noun  for  all  concepts,  hence 
simply  another  name  for  concept  in  general.  But  what  I 
eternally  repeat  is  this :  We  cannot  make  a  concept  sepa- 
rated from  all  the  rest  of  the  world  the  object  of  our  study, 
because  that  would  be  an  empty  abstraction  which  does 
not  take  on  any  meaning  until  we  connect  it  with  the 
world,  for  instance  the  special  concept  of  cabbage  with 
sense-perceived  cabbage  and  so  forth. 

The  concepts  of  white  cabbage,  cabbage  in  general, 
vegetables,  or  plants,  etc.,  are  all  of  them  special  con- 
cepts and  at  the  same  time  general  concepts.  The  one  and 
the  other  is  relative.  Compared  to  the  various  species  it 
includes,  the  general  concept  of  cabbage  is  abstract,  while 
compared  to  the  general  concept  of  vegetables  it  is  con- 
crete. And  so  it  is  with  all  concepts.  They  are  abstract 
and  concrete  at  the  same  time.  Only  the  final  concept,  the 
world  concept,  is  neither  concrete  nor  abstract,  but  abso- 
lute. It  is  the  concept  of  the  absolute,  which  is  indispen- 
sable for  an  understanding  of  logic. 

We  found  a  while  ago  that  the  absolute  world  concept 
consisted  of  two  parts,  viz.,  the  concept  and  the  world.  In 
the  same  way,  the  chemists  teach  us  that  water  consists 
of  two  elements,  each  of  which  by  itself  does  not  make 
any  water,  while  their  compound  makes  pure  water.    But 


we  do  not  need  such  distant  illustrations.  My  table  in  its 
present  composition  is  something  different  from  what  it 
would  be  if  the  same  pieces  were  put  together  in  some 
other  way  and  without  a  plan. 

Therefore  the  world  concept  is  a  far  more  sublime  con- 
cept then  all  the  parts  of  which  it  consists.  And  in 
order  to  make  this  quite  clear,  I  may  honor  this  compound 
of  the  world  and  its  concept  by  a  special  name,  say  "uni- 
verse," so  as  to  distinguish  it  from  its  component  parts. 

Now  I  declare,  without  fear  of  having  the  word  turned 
in  my  mouth  by  any  sophist,  that  the  world  embracing  the 
thought,  or  the  universe,  is  the  absolute  which  includes 
everything,  while  the  world  and  the  thought  of  it,  each  by 
itself,  are  but  classifications  or  relative  things. 

We  wish  to  understand  thought,  not  empty  abstract 
thought,  but  the  universal  world-embracing  thought,  the 
thought  in  a  philosophical  sense.  This  is  not  mere 
thought,  but  living  truth,  the  universe,  the  absolute,  the 
supreme  being. 

It  is  with  the  universe  and  its  parts  as  it  is  with  a  tele- 
scope and  its  concentric  rings.  Our  intellect  is  a  special 
ring  which  gives  us  a  picture  of  the  whole  concentric 
thing.  This  photographer,  as  I  have  called  it  in  a  former 
letter,  is  not  the  object  of  our  study  for  its  own  sake,  nor 
for  the  sake  of  its  pictures,  but  rather  for  the  sake  of  the 
original,  of  the  universe.  It  is  as  if  somebody  were  to 
buy  a  portrait  of  some  historically  renowned  person.  No 
matter  how  much  concerned  the  buyer  would  be  with  the 
picture,  in  the  last  analysis  he  is  concerned  with  that  per- 
son itself.  So  it  is  with  the  art  of  understanding  the  ab- 
solute, with  world  wisdom,  which  we  study  not  for  the 
sake  of  the  wisdom,  but  of  the  world  itself. 

This  lengthy  discussion  might  have  been  cut  short  by 


t 


i 

t 


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LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


293 


siniplv  speaking  of  the  world  instead  of  going  to  so  much 
trouble  on  account  of  the  world  concept.  But  I  should 
then  miss  mv  point,  which  is  that  the  human  mtellect  is  a 
part  of  the  world,  and  that  the  ideological  distmction 
v;hich  separates  this  intellect  from  the  rest  of  the  world, 
requires  for  the  whole  an  embracing  term. 

The  absolute  concept  is  the  concept  of  the  absolute, 
of  the  supreme  being.  To  it  applies  all  the  true,  good, 
and  beautiful  ever  attributed  to  God,  and  it  is  also  that 
being  which  lends  logic,  consistency,  and   form  to  all 

thought. 

Plato  is  a  philosopher  who  has  thrown  a  wondertul 
light  on  the  faculty  of  understanding,  though  he  has  not 
fullv  explained  it.    In  his  dialogue  entitled  '^Gorgias,"  he 
makes  Socrates  sav  the  following:   "Does  it  seem  to  you 
that  men  want  that  with  which  they  occupy  themselves 
at  any  time,  or  that  for  the  sake  of  which  they  undertake 
whatever  they  may  be  engaged  in?     Do  those,  for  m- 
stance,  who  take  some  medicine  prescribed  by  the  physi- 
cians seem  to  want  that  which  they  do     .      .      .     or  to 
want  that  for  the  sake  of  which  they  take  medicine,  viz., 
health?     ...     In  the  same  way  those  who  go  on 
board  of  ships  and  trade  do  not  want  that  which  they  are 
doing  •  for  who  would  care  to  go  to  sea  and  face  danger 
or  conquer  obstacles  ?    That  for  which  they  go  to  sea  is 
that  which  they  want,  viz.,  to  become  rich  ;  they  are  going 
to  sea  for  the  sake  of  acquiring  wealth." 

Plato  thus  says  that  the  immediate  purposes  of  men 
are  not  their  real  purposes,  but  means  to  an  end,  means 
to  welfare  or  for  ''good."  He  therefore  continues:  "It 
is  in  pursuit  of  good,  then,  that  we  go  when  we  go,  be- 
cause we  are  after  something  better,  and  we  stand  still  for 
the  sake  of  the  same  good." 


Now  let  us  go  a  step  farther  than  Socrates  and  Plato. 
Just  as  men's  actions  are  truly  done,  not  for  the  sake  of 
some  immediate  purpose,  but  of  the  ulterior,  of  welfare, 
and  just  as  their  socalled  ethical  actions  are  justified  only 
by  the  general  wellbeing,  so  all  things  of  the  world  are  not 
substantiated  by  their  immediate  environment,  but  by  the 
infinite  universe.  It  is  not  the  seed  planted  in  the  soil 
which  is  the  cause  of  the  growing  plant,  as  the  farmer 
thinks,  but  the  Earth,  the  Sun,  the  winds,  and  the  weather, 
in  short,  the  whole  of  nature,  and  that  includes  the  seed 
germ. 

If  we  apply  this  reasoning  to  our  special  object,  the 
faculty  of  understanding,  we  find  that  it  is  not  a  narrowly 
human,  nor  a  transcendental,  but  a  universal  cosmic 
faculty.  According  to  Homer,  the  immortal  gods  call 
things  by  other  names  than  mortal  men.  But  once  you 
have  grasped  the  concept  of  the  absolute,  you  understand 
the  language  of  the  gods,  you  understand  that  the  intellect 
by  itself  is  but  a  minute  particle,  while  in  the  interrelation 
with  the  universe  it  is  an  absolute  and  integral  part  of  the 
universal  absolute. 

All  things  have  a  dual  nature,  all  of  them  are  limited 
parts  of  the  unlimited,  the  inexhaustible,  the  unknowable. 
Just  as  all  things  are  small  and  great,  temporal  and  eter- 
nal, so  all  of  them  including  the  human  mind  are  know- 
able  and  unknowable  at  the  same  time.  We  must  not 
idolize  the  faculty  of  thought  nor  forget  its  divine  nature. 
Man  should  be  humble,  but  without  bowing  in  doglike 
submission  to  a  transcendental  spirit,  and  he  should  be 
sustained  by  the  sublime  consciousness  that  his  spirit  is 
the  true  one,  the  spirit  of  universal  truth. 

Everything  can  be  seen  by  eyes,  including  those  of  a 
hawk.    Just  as  the  eye  is  the  instrument  of  vision,  so  the 


29-i 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


intellect  is  the  instrument  of  thought.  And  just  as  specta- 
cles and  glasses  are  means  of  assisting  the  eye  in  seeing, 
so  senses,  experience,  and  experiments  are  means  of 
assisting  the  intellect  in  understanding.  With  this  equip- 
ment the  intellect  can  assimilate  everything  in  its  concep- 
tions. It  understands  "all,"  but  ''all"  only  in  a  relative 
sense.  We  understand  all,  just  as  we  buy  everything  for 
money.  We  can  buy  only  what  is  for  sale.  Reason  and 
sunshine  cannot  be  valued  in  money.  We  can  see  every- 
thing vvith  eyes,  and  yet  not  everything.  Sounds  and 
smells  cannot  be  seen.  Just  as  everything  is  great  and 
small,  so  everything  is  knovvable  and  unknowable,  accord- 
ing to  the  meaning  given  to  "everything"  in  the  language 
of  men  or  gods.  That  word  has  the  dual  meaning  of 
applying  to  any  particle  and  to  the  whole  universe.  So  is 
the  human  mind  universal,  but  only  a  universal  specialty. 

Look  at  that  magnificently  colored  carnation.  You 
see  the  whole  flower,  and  yet  you  do  not  see  all  of  it.  You 
do  not  see  its  scent  nor  its  weight.  In  the  human  language 
**whole"  means  a  relative  whole,  which  is  at  the  same  time 
a  part.  Every  particle  of  the  universe  is  such  a  dual  thing. 
But  in  the  language  of  the  gods,  which  is  spoken  by  phil- 
osophy, only  the  absolute  universe  is  whole. 

When  the  subject  under  discussion  is  not  the  intel- 
lect, but  some  other  part  of  the  world,  for  instance  the 
eyes,  the  universal  concept  of  the  absolute  is  not  so  impor- 
tant, because  the  faculty  of  seeing,  like  the  faculty  of 
wealth,  is  in  little  danger  of  being  metaphysically  abused. 

One  knows  that  eyes  which  can  see  around  a  corner, 
or  through  a  block  of  iron,  or  which  can  perceive  the  scent 
of  a  carnation,  are  as  meaningless  as  a  white  sorrel.  Even 
though  our  eyes  cannot  see  the  invisible,  that  does  not 


LETTERS  ON  LORIC 


295 


prevent  them  from  being  a  universal  instrument  which 
can  see  everything,  that  is  everything  visible. 

If  you  understand  this,  you  will  also  see  through  the 
miserable  wisdom  of  the  professors  which  wallows  on  its 
belly  in  the  dust  and  cries  with  the  faithful :  O  Lord,  O 
Lord!  similarly  to  Du  Bois-Reymond,  who  cries  out: 
Ignorabimus!  It  is  true  that  the  human  mind  is  an  igno- 
ramus in  the  sense  that  it  is  ever  learning,  because  there 
is  inexhaustible  material  in  nature.  There  is  also  some- 
thing unknowable  in  every  particle  of  nature,  just  as  thore 
is  something  invisible  in  every  carnation.  But  the  un- 
knowable in  the  sense  used  by  those  ignorant  people  who 
cannot  understand  the  human  mind  because  they  have 
a  transcendental  monster  in  their  mind,  such  a  monstrous 
unknowable  exists  only  in  the  imagination  of  the  idolators 
to  whom  the  true  spirit  reveals  itself  as  little  as  the  spirit 
of  truth. 

Just  as  surely  as  we  know  that  there  cannot  be  in 
heaven  any  knife  without  a  blade  and  a  handle,  nor  any 
black  horses  that  are  white,  just  so  surely  do  we  know 
that  the  faculty  of  understanding  can  never  and  nowhere 
be  the  absolute,  but  must  always  be  a  special  faculty.  The 
concept  of  understanding,  like  the  concept  of  a  knife,  is 
limited  to  a  definite  instrument.  There  may  be  all  kinds 
of  knives  and  intellects,  but  nothing  exists  that  has 
escaped  from  its  own  skin  or  from  the  limitation  of  its 
own  particular  concept. 

By  this  standard  you  may  measure  the  silly  thought  of 
those  who  speak  transcendentally  of  an  unlimited  faculty 
of  understanding.  They  haven't  any  right  idea  of  the 
mind  nor  of  the  universe,  of  the  conceivable  nor  of  the 
inconceivable,  otherwise  they  would  not  speak  in  such  a 
nonsensical  sense  of  the  "Limits  of  Understanding."     In 


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LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


short,  you  see  that  the  relative  limitation  or  absoluteness 
of  reason  can  only  be  understood  by  means  of  the  con- 
cept of  the  absolute. 


TWENTY-FIRST  LETTER 


The  proletarian  logic  of  the  working  class  searches 
after  the  supreme  being.  The  working  class  knows  that 
it  must  serve  but  it  wants  to  know  whom  to  serve.  Shall 
it  be  an  idol  or  a  king?  Where,  who,  what,  is  the  supreme 
being  to  which  everything  else  is  subordinate,  which 
brings  system,  consistency,  logic,  into  our  thought  and 
actions?  The  next  question  is  then:  By  what  road  do 
we  arrive  at  its  understanding  ?  Any  transcendental  reve- 
lation being  of  no  use  to  us,  there  are  only  two  ways 
open :  Reason  and  experience. 

Now  it  is  a  mistake  of  common  logic  to  regard  these 
two  roads  as  separate,  while,  in  fact,  they  are  one  and  the 
same  common  road,  which  by  the  help  of  empirical  reason 
or  reasonable  experience  leads  us  to  the  point  where  we 
recognize  that  the  supreme  being  to  which  everything  is 
subordinate,  is  nothing  special,  not  a  part  or  a  particle,  but 
the  universe  itself  with  all  its  parts. 

We  take  medicine  for  the  sake  of  health,  we  make 
efforts  for  the  sake  of  wealth.  But  neither  health  nor 
wealth  are  an  end  in  themselves.  What  good  is  health  to 
us,  when  we  have  nothing  to  bite  ?  What  good  are  all  the 
treasures  of  Croesus,  if  health  is  lacking?  Therefore 
health  and  wealth  must  be  combined.  Nor  is  that  enough. 
There  is  a  spirit  in  us  that  drives  us  farther  ahead.  There 
are  still  other  treasures  and  requirements,  for  instance 
contentment  is  surely  one  of  them.    But  the  motive  power 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


297 


of  the  world  spirit  is  so  infinite,  that  it  is  not  satisfied 
until  it  has  everything.  Everything,  then,  in  other  words 
the  whole  world,  that  is  the  true  end. 

Socrates  and  his  school,  to  whom  I  alluded  in  the  pre- 
ceding letter,  wandered  the  way  of  separate  reason  for  the 
purpose  of  finding  the  supreme  being,  the  true,  the  good, 
the  beautiful.  The  platonic  dialogues  paint  a  very  mag- 
nificent picture  of  the  truth  that  neither  health  nor  wealth, 
neither  bravery  nor  devotion,  are  "the  greatest  good,"  but 
that  it  is  mainly  a  question  of  the  understanding  and  use 
to  which  mankind  put  these  things.  Accordingly  they 
are  good  or  bad,  they  are  but  relative  "goods.'  Love  and 
faith,  honesty  and  veracity,  are  good  enough,  but  not  the 
good ;  they  only  partake  of  the  good.  What  is  sought  is 
that  which  is  under  all  circumstances  absolutely  good, 

true,  and  beautiful. 

When  Socrates  asked  his  disciples  to  define  the  good 
or  reasonable,  they  enumerated  as  a  rule  a  series  of  good 
and  reasonable  specialties,  while  the  master  was  contin- 
ually compelled  to  instruct  them,  that  his  research  was  not 
aimed  at  those  objects.  They  name  important  virtues,  and 
he  wants  to  know  what  absolute  virtue  is.  They  name 
good  things,  and  he  is  looking  for  the  good,  for  pure 
goodness,  while  the  good  things  have  the  bad  quality  of 
being  good  only  under  certain  circumstances. 

The  Socratic  school  then  finds  out  that  only  the  under- 
standing or  the  intellect  can  find  the  circumstances  under 
which  we  may  arrive  at  the  absolute.  Understanding,  the 
human  mind,  philosophy,  is  to  them  the  divine.  Thus  they 
arrive  at  their  famous  "Know  thyself,"  which  in  their 
language  means :  Hold  introspection  and  rack  your  brain. 
But  they  did  not  succeed  in  thus  using  the  intellect  as  an 
oracle.    Nor  did  the  Christian  philosophers  of  later  times 


298 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


fare  any  better  with  that  method,  when  they  changed  the 
title  of  the  object  of  their  studies  and  substituted  God, 
Liberty,  and  ImmortaHty,  for  the  good,  the  true,  and  the 
beautiful. 

In  order  to  get  out  of  the  confusion  resulting  from 
the  many  names  given  to  the  object  of  logic  in  the  course 
of  history,  it  must  be  remembered  that  pagan  as  well  as 
Christian  research  founded  their  quest  for  the  absolute  on 
the  innate  need  of  understanding  the  supreme  being 
which  was  to  be  the  pivot  of  all  thought  and  action. 
Polytheism  had  to  have  a  supreme  god,  no  matter  whether 
his  name  was  Zeus  or  Jupiter.  In  consequence  of  this 
longing  for  unity  it  was  very  natural  that  the  place  of  the 
many  immortals  was  finally  taken  by  one  eternal  father  of 
all.  The  philosophers  are  distinguished  from  the  the- 
ologians only  in  so  far  as  the  former  seek  for  the  fulcrum 
of  the  world  more  on  real  than  on  imaginary  ground. 

After  more  than  two  thousand  years  of  mediation  by 
intermediary  links,  ancient  philosophy  has  at  last  been 
transformed  into  modern  democratic-proletarian  logic 
which  recognizes  that  the  intellect  is  an  instrument  which 
leads  to  the  supreme  being  on  condition  that  it  does  not 
rack  the  brain  but  goes  outside  of  itself  and  consciously 
connects  itself  with  the  world  outside.  This  connection 
constitutes  the  supreme  being,  the  imperishable,  eternal, 
truth,  goodness,  beauty,  and  reason.  All  other  things  only 
"partake  of  it,"  to  use  Platonic  language. 

Although  the  Socratic  school  were  handicapped  by 
many  fantastical  attributes,  still  they  were  on  the  road 
towards  true  logic,  as  neither  health  nor  wealth,  nor  any 
other  treasure  or  virtue  satisfied  them.  They  did  not  care 
for  true  phenomena,  but  for  truth  itself.  But  truth  is  the 
universe,  and  man  must  understand  that  this  is  the  only 


s^ 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


299 


truth,  in  order  to  be  able  to  use  his  intellect  logically,  to 
be  reasonable  in  the  highest  and  classical  sense  of  this 
word. 

All  the  world  speaks  of  logic  and  logical  thought.  But 
when  you,  my  son,  as  a  thinking  man  feel  the  need  of  get- 
ting out  of  phraseology  and  knowing  exactly  what  words 
should  mean,  you  will  hardly  find  one  book  that  will  give 
you  sufficient  light  on  the  subject  of  logic.  The  best  book 
would  be  the  Bible,  perhaps.  I  mean  that,  when  you  in- 
quire after  beginning  and  end,  purpose  and  destination, 
in  short,  after  that  which  would  give  you  and  all  things 
a  definite  support,  when  you  search  for  the  vortex  around 
which  everything  revolves,  then  the  Bible  does  not  tell 
you  about  the  beginning  of  this  or  that  part  of  history, 
but  speaks  of  the  absolute  beginning  and  end  of  all  his- 
tory, of  the  general  purpose  and  general  destination  of  all 
existence.    That  is  what  I  call  logic. 

The  free  thinkers  were  not  satisfied  with  religious 
mythology,  they  wanted  to  bring  consistency  and  logic 
into  their  brains  by  their  own  studies.  Plato  and  Aristotle 
have  done  good  work  along  this  line.  So  have  the  subse- 
quent philosophers,  Cartesius,  Spinoza,  Kant.  The  main 
impediment  for  all  of  them  was  the  obstinate  prejudice 
that  man  could  have  reason  in  his  own  brain.  Of  course, 
that  is  where  he  has  it,  but  it  is  not  reasonable  reason. 
The  intellect  shut  up  in  the  skull  has  not  wisdom  in  its 
keeping,  as  the  ancients  thought.  Wisdom  cannot  be 
acquired  by  racking  your  brain.  Hegel  is  right :  Reason 
is  in  the  brain,  it  is  in  all  things,  "everything  is  reason- 
able." I  merely  repeat,  then,  that  the  universe  is  the  true 
reason. 

You  will  not  misunderstand  the  term  "racking  your 
brain."     I  am  not  an  opponent  of  introspective  thought, 


ii' 


300 


LETTERS  ON  LOGIC 


but  only  desire  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  it 
has  led  to  the  wrong  habit  of  separating  thought  from 
sight,  hearing,  feeling,  of  divesting  the  mind  of  the  body. 
Just  as  the  Christian  looked  for  salvation  outside  of  the 
flesh,  so  the  philosophers  looked  for  reason  or  understand- 
ing outside  of  the  connection  with  the  rest  of  the  world, 
outside  of  experience.  It  was  especially  the  research 
after  the  nature  of  the  intellect  which  imagined  it  had  to 
creep  inside  of  itself. 

When  studying  the  stars,  we  look  at  the  heavens; 
when  endeavoring  to  enrich  our  knowledge  of  plants,  we 
gather  flowers.  But  if  we  attempt  to  understand  the 
mind,  we  must  not  rack  our  brain,  nor  dissect  it  with  an 
anatomical  knife.  We  shall  indeed  find  the  brain,  but  not 
the  mind,  not  reason. 

And  even  the  brain  is  not  so  easily  cut  out,  as  many  an 
overzealous  materialist  may  think.  The  student  of  anat- 
omy who  pries  into  the  nature  of  the  brain  substance 
knows  very  well  that  this  substance  is  not  contained  in  the 
head  of  this  or  that  fellow,  but  must  be  sought  in  many 
heads  before  the  average  brain  is  found,  which  differs 
materially  from  that  of  Peter  or  Paul.  This  will  show 
that  your  brain  is  not  only  your  own,  but  also  "partakes" 
of  the  universal  brain,  and  you  will  easily  conclude  from 
this  how  much  less  your  reason  is  yours  alone.  Hegel 
is  right :  Not  only  men,  but  everything  is  reasonable. 

True,  the  most  rotten  conditions  may  be  defended  by 
such  maxims.  Hence  the  great  logician  Hegel  has  the 
bad  name  of  having  been,  not  a  philosopher  of  the  people, 
but  a  royal  state  philosopher  of  Prussia.  I  will  neither 
blacken  nor  wliitewash  him,  nor  will  I  overlook  that  he 
left  the  great  cause  in  a  state  of  mystical  obscurity.  But 
I  recognize  that  even  the  worst  prejudices,  the  most  per- 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


301 


verted  morals,  laws  and  institutions,  have  their  reasonable 
justification  in  the  times  and  conditions  of  their  origin. 
Such  an  understanding  is  immediately  followed  by  the 
further  insight,  that  the  most  reasonable  things,  crushed 
by  the  wheel  of  time,  will  become  rotten  and  unreasonable. 
In  short,  the  "good"  is  not  any  special  institutions,  but  is 
found  in  the  interrelations  of  the  universe.  Only  the 
absolute  is  absolutely  good.  And  for  this  reason  not  only 
some  conservative  editors  of  capitalist  papers,  but  also  the 
revolutionary  authors  of  the  "Communist  Manifesto,"  are 
genuine  Hegelians. 


TWENTY-SECOND    LETTER 

Dear  Eugene: 

Socrates  teaches:  When  we  walk,  it  is  not  walking, 
when  we  stand  still,  it  is  not  standing  which  is  our  pur- 
pose. We  always  have  something  ulterior  in  view,  until 
finally  the  general  welfare  is  the  true  end  of  our  actions, 
in  other  words,  the  "good."  And  on  closer  analysis  you 
will  find  that  your  individual  welfare,  the  socalled  egoistic 
good,  is  not  enough  in  itself. 

You  are  not  only  related  to  your  father,  mother,  broth- 
ers, sisters,  relatives  and  friends,  but  also  to  your  com- 
munity, state,  and  finally  to  the  entire  population  of  the 
globe.  Your  welfare  is  dependent  on  their  welfare,  on 
the  welfare  of  the  whole. 

I  know  very  well  that  the  horizon  of  the  everyday  capi- 
talist minds  does  not  reach  farther  than  they  can  see  from 
the  steeple  of  their  church.  They  think  according  to  the 
bad  maxim :  The  shirt  is  closer  to  the  skin  than  the  coat. 
If  I  had  to  choose  between  the  shirt  and  the  coat,  I  should 


Ni 


302 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


prefer  to  wear  the  coat  without  a  shirt  rather  than  to  run 
around  in  shirt  sleeves  as  the  object  of  universal  ridicule. 
The  old  man  who  plants  a  tree  the  fruits  of  which  he  will 
perhaps  never  see  is  not  such  a  capitalist  mind,  otherwise 
he  would  sow  seeds  that  would  ripen  during  this  year's' 
summer. 

At  this  juncture  we  must  remember  that  the  disciples 
of  Socrates  who  looked  for  the  absolute  under  the  name 
of  the  "good,"  were  in  so  far  narrow  as  they  conceived  of  it 
only  from  the  moral,  specifically  human,  standpoint,  in- 
stead of  at  the  same  time  considering  its  cosmic  side.  Just 
as  health  and  wealth  belong  together,  and  even  these  are 
not  sufficient  for  human  welfare  which  further  requires 
all  social  and  political  virtues,  so  the  good  is  not  com- 
prised in  the  interrelations  of  all  mankind,  but  passes 
beyond  them  and  connects  itself  with  the  entire  universe. 
Without  the  universe  man  is  nothing.  He  has  no  eyes 
without  light,  no  ears  without  sound,  no  morals  without 
physics.  Man  is  not  so  much  the  measure  of  all  things ; 
his  more  or  less  intimate  connection  with  all  things  is 
rather  the  measure  of  all  humanity.  Not  narrow  moral- 
ity, but  the  universe,  the  supreme  being,  is  the  good  in  the 
very  highest  meaning  of  the  word,  is  absolute  good,  right, 
truth,  beauty,  and  reason. 

In  my  preceding  letter  I  spoke  of  universal  reason  and 
said  that  not  alone  men,  but  also  mountains,  valleys,  for- 
ests and  fields,  and  even  fools  and  knaves  were  reasonable. 
Now  you  are  familiar  with  that  student's  song:  "What's 
Coming  from  the  Heights?"  and  you  know  that  it  makes 
everything  leathern.  It  speaks  of  a  leathern  hill,  a  leathern 
coach-driver,  a  leathern  letter,  even  father,  mother,  and 
sister  are  of  leather.  And  I  mention  this  simply  for  the 
purpose  of  showing  that  I  understand  that  we  cannot  call 


LETTERS   OX    LOGIC 


303 


.\ 


leather  reasonable  and  reasonable  leathern  without  brew- 
ing a  mixture  of  language  which  is  lacking  the  mark  by 
which  all  reasonable  language  is  distinguished  from  chat- 
tering, howling,  and  roaring.  Language  is  only  reason- 
able when  it  classifies  the  world  and  distinguishes  things 
by  different  names. 

This  is  easily  understood.  But  it  is  more  difficult  to 
see  that  those  who  use  their  intellect  without  logical  train- 
ing exaggerate  distinctions  to  such  an  extent  that  they 
ignore  the  connection  between  them.  All  things  are  not 
only  distinct,  but  also  connected.  But  logic  so  far  must  be 
blamed  for  not  rising  to  the  recognition  of  the  interrela- 
tion of  all  things.  The  science  of  understanding  fre- 
quently treats  reason  and  experience  as  if  they  were  two 
different  things  without  a  common  nature.  Therefore,  I 
make  It  a  point  to  insist  that  there  is  no  experience  without 
reason  and  no  reason  without  experience. 

The  linguists  who  dispute  about  the  question  whether 
reason  has  developed  after  language  or  language  after 
reason  agree  that  both  belong  together.  One  cannot 
speak  without  the  use  of  reason,  or  talk  without  sense,  be- 
cause chattering,  or  babbling,  or  whatever  one  may  wish 
to  call  it,  are  everything  else  but  language.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  can  be  no  reason  without  naming  the  things 
of  this  world,  so  as  to  distinguish  between  leather  and 
lady,  between  reason  and  experience. 

Of  course,  the  idea  of  a  leathern  lady  is  only  a  youthful 
prank.  Still  it  is  calculated  to  illustrate  the  dialectic 
transfusion  of  all  names  and  things,  of  all  subjects  and 
predicates.  It  shows  indirectly  that  according  to  common 
sense  thought,  reason  has  its  home  only  in  the  brain  of 
man,  and  that  this  reason  is  nevertheless  unsound  when  it 
does  not  know  and  remember  that  the  individual  human 


304 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


brain  Is  connected  with  all  brains,  and  reasons  with  the 
whole  world,  so  that  only  all  existence  and  the  entire  uni- 
verse is  reasonable  in  the  highest  meaning"  of  the  word. 

In  order  to  be  able  to  use  your  reason  in  all  research 
and  on  all  objects  in  a  reasonable  manner,  you  must  know 
that  the  whole  world  has  one  nature,  even  leather  and  your 
sister.  Apparently  there  is  a  wide  gulf  between  these  two, 
and  yet  in  both  of  them  the  same  forces  are  active,  just  as 
a  black  horse  has  the  same  horse  nature  as  a  white  horse, 
so  that  from  this  point  of  view  your  sister  is  indeed  leath- 
ern and  leather  sisterly.  Such  statements  sound  paradoxi- 
cal enough,  yet  I  insist  on  making  them  in  this  extreme 
manner  in  order  to  fully  reveal  the  absolute  oneness  of  all 
existence,  since  it  is  the  indispensable  basis  of  a  reason- 
able understanding  of  logic. 

Take  one  of  the  questions  of  the  day  now  agitating  the 
public  mind,  for  a  further  illustration.  Two  tendencies 
are  now  observed  in  the  most  radical  political  movement 
of  the  nations.  One  of  them  is  called  propaganda  of  the 
deed.  It  works  in  Russia  and  Ireland  with  dynamite, 
powder,  and  lead.  The  other  recommends  the  propa- 
ganda of  the  word,  of  the  vote,  and  of  lawful  agitation. 
And  the  difference  between  these  two  is  not  discussed  rea- 
sonably with  a  view  to  ascertaining  for  whom,  when, 
where,  and  why,  this  or  that  propaganda  is  fitting,  but 
every  one  tries  to  present  his  relative  truth  with  the  fanac- 
ical  sectarianism  of  those  who  claim  absolute  truth.  But 
if  you  have  grasped  the  method  of  getting  at  truth,  the 
true  method  of  using  your  reasoning  faculty,  you  will 
take  sides  for  one  thing  today  and  for  another  thing  to- 
morrow, because  you  will  understand  that  all  roads  are 
leading  toward  Rome.  And  if  some  of  the  comrades  out- 
vote you  occasionally,  you  will  still  value  these  antagon- 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


.305 


ists  as  friends,  and  if  you  combat  them,  even  in  a  war  to 
the  knife,  this  will  still  be  a  relative  war,  a  use  of  the  knife 
with  reason. 

Our  proletarian  logic  is  tolerant,  not  fanatical.  This 
logic  does  not  want  to  be  reasonable  without  passion,  nor 
passionate  without  reason.  It  does  not  abolish  the  differ- 
ence between  friend  and  foe,  between  truth  and  falsehood, 
between  reason  and  nonsense,  but  calms  the  fanaticism 
which  exaggerates  those  distinctions.  ')Its  fundamental 
maxim  is :   There  is  only  one  absolute,  the  universe. 

Remember  well  that  the  conception  of  a  universe 
which  has  anything  outside  or  beside  itself  is  still  more 
senseless,  if  possible,  than  the  idea  of  wooden  iron.  You 
thus  see  that  all  differences  have  one  common  nature 
wKich  does  not  permit  a  transcendentally  wide  difference 
between  things  or  opinions.  Because  the  universe  is  the 
•supreme  being,  therefore  all  differences,  even  those  of 
t)pinion,  are  unessential. 

For  the  purpose  of  studying  logic,  I  entreat  you  to 
pay  special  attention  to  the  question  of  essential  differ- 
ences and  to  test  it  by  your  own  experience  which  will 
come  to  you  from  day  to  day. 

By  means  of  our  logic  we  learn  the  language  of  the 
gods.  In  the  dictionary  of  this  language,  there  is  only 
one  essential  being,  the  universal  or  supreme  being.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  language  of  the  mortals  calls  every 
particle  a  "being,"  but  such  being  can  be  relative  beings 
only. 

Every  ear  of  a  cornfield,  every  hair  of  an  ox  skin,  and 
even  every  one  of  their  particles,  is  such  a  being.  But 
these  relative  beings  are  at  the  same  time  unessential  at- 
tributes. Thus  all  differences  between  the  particles  of  the 
world  are  simultaneously   essential  and  unessential ;  in 


3or> 


LETTERS   OX    LOGIC 


Other  words,  they  have  a  relative  existence,  they  merely 
partake  of  the  supreme  being,  compared  to  whom  they  are 
absolutely  unessential.  Whether  you  are  a  good  or  a  bad 
man,  whether  your  country  is  happy  or  unhappy,  free  or 
oppressed,  is  very  essential  to  you  or  me,  but  compared 
with  the  great  absolute  whole  it  is  very  unessential.  In 
the  universal  history  the  fate  of  any  single  nation  has  no 
more  significance  than  one  hair  on  my  head,  although 
none  of  my  hairs  is  there  by  mere  chance  and  all  of  them 
have  been  counted.  Hence  everything  is  in  its  particular 
and  isolated  self  an  unessential  thing,  but  in  the  general 
interrelation  everything  is  a  necessary,  reasonable,  essen- 
tial and  divine  particle. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  moral  of  it  all.  The  human 
reason,  the  special  object  of  logical  research,  partakes  of 
the  nature  of  the  universe.  It  is  nothing  in  itself.  As  an 
isolated  being,  it  is  wholly  void  and  incapable  of  produc- 
ing any  understanding  or  knowledge.  Only  in  connec- 
tion, not  merely  with  the  material  brain,  but  with  the 
entire  universe,  is  the  intellect  capable  of  existing  and  act- 
ing. It  is  not  the  mere  brain  which  thinks,  but  the  whole 
man  is  required  for  that  purpose ;  and  not  man  alone,  but 
the  total  interrelation  with  the  universe  is  necessary  for 
the  purpose  of  thinking.  Reason  itself  reveals  no  truths. 
The  truths  which  are  revealed  to  us  by  means  of  reason, 
are  revelations  of  the  general  nature  of  the  absolute 
universe. 

If  you  think  of  reason  in  this  way,  then,  my  son,  you 
are  thinking  reasonably,  are  world-wise,  logical,  and  true. 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


30T 


TWENTY-THIRD  LETTER 

(A) 

Although  we  know  that  there  is  no  actual  beginning, 
because  we  are  living  in  the  universe  without  beginning 
and  end,  still  we  mortals  must  always  begin  at  a  certain 
point.  So  I  have  begun  one  of  my  retrospects  over  the 
history  of  my  subject  with  Plato,  and  at  another  time  I 
have  ended  with  Hegel,  although  before  and  after  them 
there  has  been  much  philosophical  thought.  These  two 
names  are  luminant  points  which  throw  their  light  over 
everything  which  is  situated  between  them. 

The  errors  of  our  predecessors  are  just  as  useful  for 
the  purpose  of  illustration  as  their  positive  achievements. 
More  even:  the  errors  form  the  steps  of  a  ladder  which 
leads  toward  a  universal  world  philosophy.  We  clamber 
up  and  down  on  it,  perhaps  a  little  irregularly,  but  now- 
adays the  crooked  roads  of  an  English  park  are  preferred 
to  the  straight  French  avenues. 

It  was  an  achievement  on  the  part  of  the  Socratic  and 
Platonic  schools  to  seek  the  good  not  in  good  specialties, 
.but  in  general  good  as  a  "pure"  or  absolute  thing,  to 
search  for  virtue  in  general  instead  of  virtues.  But  it  was 
a  mistake  which  prevented  their  success,  to  exaggerate 
the  distinction  between  the  special  and  the  general.  Ac- 
cording to  Plato,  the  black  and  white  horses  canter  over 
terrestrial  pavements,  but  the  horse  in  general,  which  is 
neither  brown,  black,  nor  white,  neither  as  slender  as  a 
race  horse  nor  as  clumsy  as  a  draft  horse,  cantered  along 
in  the  Platonic  "idea,"  in  the  ideal  mists.  Platonic  logic 
lacked  what  is  taught  by  our  present,  or  if  you  pre- 
fer, future  proletarian  logic,  viz.,  the  general  understand- 
ing of  the  interrelation  of  all  things,  the  truth  that  in 


308 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


spite  of  their  individual  differences  all  things  belong 
together  as  individuals  of  the  same  genus.  The  logical 
relation  between  individual  and  genus  stuck  upside  down 
in  the  brain  of  the  noble  Plato. 

He  lived  in  a  time  which  is  similar  to  our  own  time  in 
that  the  world  of  the  gods  of  the  ancients  was  in  the  same 
state  of  dissolution  in  which  the  Christian  religions  are 
today.  Plato  was  as  little  satisfied  with  Grecian  mythol- 
ogy as  a  basis  for  a  reasonable  explanation  of  the  world, 
as  we  are  with  Christian  mythology.  He  wanted  to 
ascend  to  the  universal  truth,  not  by  way  of  little  tradi- 
tional stories,  but  by  scientific  philosophy.  His  intention 
was  good,  but  his  weak  flesh  wrestled  with  a  task  which 
required  thousands  of  years  for  its  solution. 

A  while  ago  I  said  that  it  was  that  topsy-turvy  view 
of  religion  as  to  the  relation  between  the  special  and  the 
general  which  thwarted  Plato.  Let  me  illustrate  a  little 
more  in  detail  in  what  this  religious  topsy-turvydom  con- 
sisted. 

Here  we  have  wind,  the  waters  of  the  seas,  the  rays  of 
the  sun,  chemical  and  physical  forces,  forces  of  nature. 
These  are  specimens  of  the  universal  force  of  nature. 
These  specimens  were  regarded  with  sober  enough  eyes 
by  the  Greeks,  but  the  general  nature  sat  high  upon 
Olympus  in  the  form  of  Zeus.  In  the  same  way,  the 
Greeks  were  familiar  with  beautiful  things,  but  beauty 
was  an  unapproachable  goddess,  Aphrodite.  True,  the 
philosopher  no  longer  believed  in  the  gods,  but  he  was 
nevertheless  still  under  the  influence  of  transcendental 
concepts  and  thus  he  mystified  the  general  under  the  name 
of  the  "idea.'  The  Platonic  ideas,  like  the  gods  of  the 
heathen,  are  mystifications  of  the  general.  Plato  further- 
more shows  himself  as  a  descendant  of  polytheism  in 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


309 


this:  Although  he  clearly  distinguished  between  virtue 
and  virtuous  things,  between  beauty  and  beautiful  things, 
between  truth  and  true  things,  yet  he  did  not  rise  to  the 
understanding  that  all  generalities  are  amalgamated  and 
unified  in  the  absolute  generality,  that,  in  so  far,  the  good, 
the  true,  and  the  beautiful  are  identical.  The  research 
for  the  absolute  did  not  become  monistic  until  Christian 
monotheism  lent  a  hand.  You  will  see  from  this  that 
religion  and  philosophy  form  a  common  chapter  which 
has  the  genus  of  all  genera  for  its  object.  Faith  is  distin- 
guished from  science  in  that  the  latter  no  longer  bows  to 
the  dictates  of  imagination  and  of  its  organs,  the  priests, 
but  seeks  to  fathom  the  object  of  its  studies  by  the  exact 
use  of  the  intellect.  A  partial  amalgamation  of  the  two 
is,  therefore,  quite  natural. 

"When  a  woman  is  strong,  isn't  she  strong  after  the 
same  conception  and  the  same  strength?  By  the  term 
same,"  says  the  Platonic  Socrates,  "I  mean  that  it  makes 
no  difference  whether  the  strength  is  in  the  man  or  in  the 
woman." 

This  quotation,  taken  from  Plato's  "Menon,"  shows 
that  Platonic  research  deals  with  the  general,  in  this  case 
the  general  concept  of  strength  which  is  the  same  in  man 
or  woman,  ox  or  mule,  Tom  and  Jerry.  It  is  the  genus 
by  means  of  which  black  and  white  horses  are  known  as 
horses,  dogs  and  monkeys  as  animals,  animals  and  plants 
as  organisms,  and  finally  the  variations  of  the  whole  world 
as  the  universe,  as  the  same.  Plato  has  grasped  this  same- 
ness in  a  limited  way,  for  instance  in  regard  to  strength, 
reason,  virtue,  etc.  But  that  in  an  infinite  sense  everything 
is  the  same,  that  things  as  well  as  ideas,  bodies,  and  souls, 
are  the  same,  remained  for  radical  proletarian  logic  to 
discover. 


310 


LETTERS   OX    LOGIC 


Hand  in  hand  with  the  narrow  Platonic  conception 
of  the  general  went  a  narrow  theory  of  understanding  or 
science,  a  wrong  conception  of  the  intellect  and  its  func- 
tions. The  Socratic  Plato  and  the  Platonic  Socrates  both 
call  understanding  by  the  name  of  "remembering."  By 
praising  understanding,  they  teach  us  that  we  must  not 
believe  the  priests,  but  study  by  the  help  of  our  senses. 
But,  nevertheless,  they  still  teach  a  wrong  method,  a  nar- 
row art  of  thought. 

In  "Menon,"  the  object  of  study  is  virtue.  Socrates 
does  not  exactly  pose  as  a  schoolmaster.  He  knows  that 
he  is  called  the  wisest  of  men,  but  explains  that  this  is 
so,  because  others  have  a  conceited  opinion  of  their  wis- 
dom, while  his  wisdom  consists  in  humbly  knowing  that 
he  knows  nothing.  He  does  not  so  much  try  to  teach 
what  virtue  is,  as  to  stimulate  his  disciples  to  search  for  it. 
But  his  idea  of  research  is  distorted. 

Among  the  immortal  things  which  he  transcenden- 
tally  separates  from  mortal  things,  he  also  classifies  the 
soul,  "the  immortal  soul"  which  dies  and  lives  again,  and 
has  always  lived,  knows  everything,  but  must  "remember." 
Thus  his  research  becomes  a  cudgeling  of  the  brain,  an 
introspective  speculation.  He  is  not  looking  for  under- 
standing by  way  of  natural  science,  through  the  interre- 
lations of  the  world,  but  speculatively  through  the  inside 
of  the  human  skull. 

In  order  to  make  his  theory  of  memory  plain,  Socrates 
in  "Menon"  calls  an  ignorant  slave  and  instructs  him  in 
the  fundamentals  of  geometry.  He  quickly  succeeds  in 
getting  from  the  ignorant  fellow,  who  at  first  gives  wrong 
answers,  the  correct  statements  by  recalling  the  connec- 
tions of  thought  by  clever  questioning.  He  thus  demon- 
strates to  his  satisfaction  that  man  has  wisdom  a  priori 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


311 


in  his  head.  But  the  Socratic-Platonic  art  of  logic  has 
overlooked  that  such  wisdom  requires  concepts  which  are 
fixed  in  memory  by  internal  and  external  interrelations. 
The  socalled  immortal  soul  with  its  innate  wisdom  has 
troubled  the  world  a  good  while  thereafter. 

You  must  not  think  that  I  have  a  poor  opinion  of 
Plato,  because  I  criticize  him  in  this  way.  On  the  con- 
trary, I  am  highly  delighted  with  his  divine  and  immortal 
writings.  "Honor  to  Socrates,  honor  to  Plato,  but  still 
more  honor  to  truth."  I  also  assure  you  that  I  am  a  great 
admirer  of  natural  science,  but  nevertheless  I  should  like 
to  show  you  that  it  indulges  in  narrow  reasoning. 

Robert  Mayer,  the  talented  discoverer  of  the  equiv- 
alent of  heat,  has  proven  that  the  force  of  gravitation,  of 
electricity,  of  steam,  of  heat,  etc.,  represents  different 
modes  of  expression  of  the  same  force,  of  the  force  of 
nature  in  general.  But  no,  not  quite  so!  He  has  ascer- 
tained the  numerical  relation  by  which  the  transformations 
of  one  force  into  another  is  accomplished.  Thus  a  logical 
understanding  sees  that  the  various  forces  and  force  in 
general  are  distinguished  in  detail  but  identical  in  gen- 
eral. Darwin  in  his  "Origin  of  Species"  has  accomplished 
a  similar  demonstration.  But  neither  Mayer  nor  Darwin 
have  given  that  general  expression  to  world  unity  which  is 
required  by  the  art  of  logic.  In  order  to  become  an  adept 
at  this  art,  you  must  rise  to  the  understanding  that  all 
forces  are  various  modes  of  expression  of  the  one  force, 
all  animals  and  species  transformations  of  animaldom, 
that  on  the  moon  a  part  is  smaller  than  the  whole,  the 
same  as  on  earth,  that  there  as  well  as  here  fire  burns, 
and  that  as  surely  as  you  have  no  doubt  of  your  being, 
just  as  surely  is  there  only  one  being,  the  infinite,  divine 


312 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


universe  which  has  no  other  gods  beside  it,  but  contains 
all  forces,  materials,  and  transformations. 

This  is  an  innate  science  which  is  the  cause  of  all  other 
science,  an  innate  science  which,  indeed,  must  first  be 
awakened  in  you  by  "memory." 

Hence  our  proletarian  logic  instructs  you  not  to  rack 
your  brain  by  mere  introspection,  as  the  ancient  philoso- 
phers used  to  do,  not  to  call  the  senses  impostors  nor  to 
search  for  truth  without  eyes,  nose,  and  ears,  nor  on  the 
other  hand  to  start  out  with  the  idea  of  certain  natural 
scientists  who  try  to  see,  hear,  and  smell  understanding 
without  the  help  of  the  intellect. 

The  mistake  committed  in  making  a  wrong  use  of  the 
intellect  is  a  ''sin  against  the  holy  ghost."  The  Socratic- 
Platonic  doctrine  of  memory  is  one  extreme  side  of  this 
sin ;  the  other  extreme  side  is  represented  by  that  modern 
science  which  tries  to  find  truth  by  mere  external  means 
and  rejects  everything  as  untrue  which  is  not  ponderable 
or  tangible. 

As  this  letter  is  more  intimately  connected  with  the 
following  one  than  is  ordinarily  the  case,  I  take  the  liberty 
to  unite  them  under  the  same  number  and  mark  them  with 
the  letters  A  and  B. 


(B) 

We  are  still  the  guests  of  Plato  today,  my  son,  and  I 
should  like  to  show  you  that  this  philosopher,  in  whose 
time  natural  science  had  barely  developed  its  first  downy 
feathers,  already  suspected  its  stubborn  narrowness,  al- 
though in  a  certain  sense  the  Platonic  logic  was  no  less 


LETTERS  ON    LOGIC 


313 


r 


narrow  than  that  of  the  so-called  exact  sciences  still  is 
to-day,  at  least  in  part.  Still  Platonic  logic  had  at  least  the 
advantage  of  its  outlook  toward  the  Supreme  Being,  the 
a])solute,  while  modern  naturalism  is  still  stuck  in  the 
narrow  land  of  specialties.  Therefore,  I  hope  that  you 
will  find  it  interesting  to  note  with  me  the  way  in  which 
universal  truth  is  peeping  forth  beneath  the  wings  of  Pla- 
tonic speculation. 

"Listen,  then,  to  what  I  am  going  to  say."  remarks 
Socrates  in  "Phaedo,"  paragraph  45.  "In  my  youth,  O 
Cebes,  I  had  a  great  interest  in  natural  science,  for  it 
seemed  to  me  a  magnificent  thing  to  know  the  cause  of 
everything,  to  learn  how  everything  begins,  exists,  and 
passes.  A  hundred  times  I  turned  to  one  thing  and  then 
to  another,  reflecting  about  these  matters  by  myself.  Do 
animals  arise  when  the  hot  and  the  cold  begin  to  disinte- 
grate, as  some  claim  ?  Is  it  the  blood,  which  enables  us  to 
think,  or  the  air  or  the  fire?  Or  is  it  none  of  these,  but 
rather  the  brain  which  produces  all  perceptions,  such  as 
seeing,  hearing,  smelling,  and  does  memory  and  thought 
then  arise  by  these,  and  from  thought  and  iriemory,  when 
they  become  adjusted,  understanding?  And  again,  when 
I  considered  that  all  this  passes  away,  and  the  changes 
in  heaven  and  on  earth,  I  finally  felt  myself  poorly  quali- 
fied for  this  whole  investigation.  Let  this  l)e  sufficient 
proof  to  you  :  In  the  things  which  formerly  were  familiar 
and  known  to  me,  I  became  so  doubtful  by  this  investiga- 
tion, that  I  forgot  even  that  which  I  thought  I  knew  of 
many  other  things,  as  for  instance  the  question  as  to  how 
man  grows.  I  thought  that  everybody  knew  that  this  was 
caused  by  eating  and  drinking.  For  when  through  the 
food  flesh  comes  to  flesh  and  bone  to  bone,  and  in  the  same 
way  that  which  is  akin  to  all  the  rest  of  the  things  which 


311 


LETTERS   OX    LOGIC 


constitute  man,  it  seemed  natural  that  a  small  mass  would 
become  larger,  and  thus  a  small  man  grow  tall.  Docs 
not  this  appear  reasonable  to  you?  .  .  .  Consider 
furthermore  this.  It  sccm.ed  enough  to  me  that  a  man 
appeared  large  when  standing  by  tlie  side  of  somethings 
small,  that  he  looked  taller  by  one  head,  and  in  the  same 
way  one  horse  by  the  side  of  another;  or  what  is  still 
plainer,  ten  seemed  to  me  more  than  eight,  because  it  is 
more  by  two,  and  a  thing  of  two  feet  longer  than  that 
which  measures  only  one  foot,  because  it  exceeds  it  by 
one." 

Thereupon  Cebes  asks:  "Well,  and  what  do  you 
think  of  this  now  ?" 

"I  think,  by  Zeus,"  says  Socrates,  "that  I  am  far  re- 
moved from  knowing  the  cause  of  any  of  these  things.  I 
do  not  even  admit  that  by  adding  one  to  one  I  o':tain  two, 
by  such  an  addition.  P'or  T  wonder  how  it  is  that  cadi 
was  supposed  to  be  one  when  by  itself,  while  now,  that 
they  have  been  added  to  one  another,  they  have  become 
two.  Neither  can  I  convince  myself  that  if  one  thing 
divides  a  thing  in  two,  that  this  division  is  the  cause  of 
it  becoming  two.  For  this  would  be  the  opposite  way  of 
making  two.  But  when  I  heard  somebody  reading  some- 
thing from  a  book,  written  by  Anaxagoras  as  he  said,  to 
the  effect  that  it  is  reason  which  had  arranged  every- 
thing and  was  the  cause  of  everything,  T  rejoiced  at  this 
cause.  .  .  .  Now  if  one  were  to  search  for  the  cause 
of  all  things,  of  their  origin,  existence  and  passing,  he 
should  only  find  out  what  is  the  best  way  to  maintain  their 
existence.  .  .  .  Hence  it  is  not  meet  that  man  should 
care  for  anything  else  in  regard  to  himself  as  well  as  to  all 
other  things,  hut  for  that  which  is  best  and  most  ex- 
ccllcpt,  and  then  he  would  also  know  the  worst  about 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


315 


things,  for  the  understanding  of  both  is  the  same.  Con- 
sidering this,  I  was  glad  to  have  found  a  teacher  who 
knows  about  the  cause  of  all  things,  who  suited  me,  I 
mean  Anaxagoras,  and  who  would  now  tell  me,  first 
whether  the  earth  is  round  or  flat,  and  after  telling  me 
that,  would  also  explain  to  me  the  necessity  for  it  and 
the  cause,  by  pointing  to  the  fact  that  it  was  better  that 
it  should  be  so.  And  when  he  claimed  that  the  earth  was 
the  center  of  things,  I  hoped  he  would  explain  why  it  was 
better  that  it  should  be  the  center,  and  when  he  had 
explained  that,  I  was  resolved  that  I  would  not  ask  for 
any  other  cause.  In  the  same  way  I  was  going  to  in- 
quire after  the  cause  of  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  other 
stars,  etc.  .  .  .  For  I  did  not  believe  that  after  claim- 
ing all  this  to  have  been  arranged  by  reason,  he  would 
be  dragging  in  any  other  cause  than  that  of  being  best  to 
have  it  just  so.  And  this  wonderful  hope  I  had  to  abandon, 
my  friends,  when  I  continued  to  read  and  saw  that  the 
man  accomplished  nothing  by  reason  and  adduces  no 
other  reasons  relating  to  the  arrangement  of  things,  but 
quotes  air,  and  water,  and  ether,  and  many  other  aston- 
ishing things. 

"And  it  seemed  that  it  was  as  if  some  one  said  Socrates 
accomplishes  all  things  by  reason,  and  then,  when  he 
began  to  enumerate  the  cause  of  everything  I  do,  were 
to  say  first  that  I  am  sitting  here  because  my  body  con- 
sists of  bones  and  sinews,  and  that  the  bones  are  hard 
and  are  dift'erentiated  by  joints,  and  the  sinews  so  con- 
structed that  they  can  be  extended  and  shortened,  etc. 
And  further,  if  he  tried  to  name  the  causes  of  our  dis- 
cussion, he  would  refer  to  other  similar  things,  such  as 
sound,  and  air  and  hearing,  and  a  thousand  and  one  other 
things,  quite  neglecting  the  true  cause,  viz.,  that  it  suited 


I 


316 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


the  Atlieiiians  better  to  condemn  me,  and  that  it  suited 
me  for  this  reason  to  stay  here  and  seemed  more  just 
to  me  to  bear  patiently  the  punishment  which  they  have 
ordered.  For  I  believe  that  my  bones  and  sinews  would 
have  gone  long  ago  to  the  dogs  or  been  carried  to  the 
Boeotians,  had  I  not  considered  it  more  just  and  beauti- 
ful to  atone  to  the  state  than  to  flee. 

"It  is  very  illogical,  then,  to  name  such  causes.  But  if 
any  one  were  to  say  that  I  should  not  be  able  to  do  what 
I  please  without  these  things  (sinews  and  bones,  and  what- 
ever else  I  may  have) ,  he  would  be  right.  But  it  would 
be  a  very  thoughtless  contention  to  say  that  these  things 
are  the  cause  of  my  actions,  instead  of  my  free  choice  to 
do  the  best.  That  would  show  an  inability  to  distinguish 
the  fact  that  in  all  things  the  cause  is  one  thing,  and  an- 
other thing  that  without  which  the  cause  could  not  be 
cause.  And  it  seems  to  mc  that  it  is  precisely  this  which 
some  call  by  a  wrong  name  in  considering  it  as  the  cause. 
For  this  reason  some  put  a  whirlwind  from  heaven  round 
the  earth  and  others  rest  it  on  air  as  they  would  a  wide 
trough  on  a  footstool.' 

So  far  Socrates,  whose  words  I  ask  you  to  read  re- 
peatedly and  carefully,  though  they  may  look  a  little  old- 
fashioned.  This  quotation  is  somewhat  lengthy,  but  I 
thought  best  not  to  cut  it  too  short  and  to  present  it  in 
its  main  outlines. 

This  quotation  sa\s  on  the  whole  the  same  thing 
which  I  have  said  in  my  preceeding  letters.  According 
to  Socrates,  all  our  thoughts  and  actions  have  a  wider 
and  more  general  purpose,  which  he  calls  the  "good," 
so  that  we  even  do  evil  for  the  sake  of  good.  A  crime 
always  aims  at  some  particular  good.  Evil  is  misun- 
derstood good.     Applied  to  natural  science,  this  means 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


317 


I 


that  it  misunderstands  the  interrelation  of  all  its  fine  dis- 
coveries. And  this  charge  is  true  even  to-day.  Although 
the  natural  interrelations  are  more  and  more  recognized 
from  day  to  day,  still  the  understanding  of  the  absolute 
inter-connection  continues  to  be  overlooked,  especially 
that  of  the  intellect  with  material  things,  or  of  the  ideal 
with  the  real.  Natural  science  teaches  after  the  manner 
of  the  gospel  of  John :  Abraham  begot  Isaac,  Isaac  begot 
Jacob.  But  it  forgets  to  teach  that  all  these  genitors 
were  not  genitors  in  the  last  analysis,  but  begotten  by  old 
Jehovah  himself.  The  uncultivated  condition  of  Grecian 
natural  sciences  may  have  been  ground  enough  for  So- 
crates to  think  little  of  it.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
to-day  good  reasons  for  thinking  highly  of  natural 
science,  and  for  this  very  reason  I  take  pains  to  illus- 
trate by  its  prominent  example  in  what  respect  the  ne- 
glect of  the  universal  world  thought  results  in  a  narrow 
conception  of  the  world. 

We  may  well  rejoice  more  lastingly  than  Socrates 
when  natural  science  teaches  us  how  it  happens  that 
everything  has  its  origin,  life,  and  end,  because  the  knowl- 
edge of  natural  science  has  been  far  more  enriched  by 
modern  experiences  than  it  was  at  the  time  of  Anaxa- 
goras.  Nevertheless  you  must  not  stop  learning  further- 
more from  logic  that  all  growing,  coming  into  existence, 
living,  and  passing  away  is  but  a  change  of  fomi.  The 
causes  of  natural  science  are  indeed  not  causes,  but  ef- 
fects of  the  universe.  They  are  reasonable  effects  of 
reason  in  so  far  as  the  latter  is  not  an  isolated  part,  but 
interconnected  with  the  universe.  To  repeat:  Our  in- 
tellect is  not  ours,  it  does  not  belong  to  man,  but  it  to- 
gether with  man  belongs  to  the  universe.  Reason  and  the 
world,  the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful,  together 


j 


ni8 


LETTERS   OX    LOGIC 


with  Godhood  which  you  shall  not  idolize  but  under- 
stand in  the  spirit  and  in  the  world,  in  truth  and  in 
reality,  are  all  one  thing,  one  being,  and  everywhere 
eternal  and  the  same. 

Socrates  shows  that  he  has  as  yet  only  a  narrow  an- 
thropomorphic, not  a  cosmic  conception  of  the  "best  and 
good"  and  of  reason.  He  was  dominated  by  the  preju- 
dice which  still  holds  sway  over  the  uncultured  believers 
in  God,  that  reason  is  older  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world, 
that  it  is  the  ruling  and  antecedent  creator.  Our  concep- 
tion of  logic,  on  the  other  hand,  teaches  that  the  spirit 
which  we  have  in  our  brain  is  but  the  emanation  of  the 
world  spirit.  And  this  latter  must  not  be  conceived  as  a 
nebulous  world  monster,  not  as  an  enormous  spirit,  but 
as  the  actual  universe,  which  in  spite  of  all  change  and 
all  variation  is  eternally  one,  true,  good,  reasonable,  real, 
and  supreme. 


TWENTY-FOURTH   LETTER 

The  art  of  thought,  my  son,  for  which  we  are  striv- 
ing, is  not  pure  and  abstract,  but  connected  with  prac- 
tice, a  practical  theory,  a  theoretical  practice.  It  is  not  a 
separate  and  isolated  thing,  not  a  "thing  in  itself,"  but  is 
connected  with  all  things;  it  has  a  universal  interrela- 
tion. Hence  our  logic,  as  we  have  repeatedly  stated,  is 
a  philosophy,  world  wisdom,  and  metaphysics.  I  include 
the  latter,  because  our  logic  excludes  nothing,  not  even 
the  transcendental.  It  teaches  that  everything,  even 
transcendentalism,  if  practiced  with  consciousness  and 
the  necessary  moderation,  and  at  the  right  time  and  place, 


LETTERS   ON   LOGIC 


319 


for  instance  at  the  carnival,  is  a  reasonable  and  sublime 
pleasure. 

All  prominent  philosophers  were  explorers  and  users 
of  the  same  art  of  thought,  of  living,  of  viewing  the 
world,  although  many  of  them  retired  to  the  solitude  and 
were  ascetics.  Can  the  world  be  understood  in  a  hermi- 
tage? Yes  and  no.  After  you  have  been  traveling  and 
seeing  many  lands,  it  is  well  to  retire  and  classify  the 
impressions  received,  and  thus  to  reflect  about  a  true 
philosophy  of  life.  In  this  way,  secluded  thought,  in  t!ie 
relative  meaning  of  the  word,  that  is,  in  connection  with 
observation  and  experience,  with  enjoyment  and  life,  is 
a  veritable  savior.  Body  and  soul  belong  together,  and 
if  they  are  separated,  it  must  be  remembered  that  such 
a  separation  is  a  mere  matter  of  form,  that  they  are  in 
fact  one  thing,  attributes  of  the  same  being  which  is  in- 
finitely great,  so  great  that  all  other  beings  are  but  its 
fringes. 

The  art  of  distinction  distinguishes  the  infinite  in- 
finitely with  the  consciousness  that  in  reality  everything 
is  interrelated  without  distinction  and  is  one. 

This  truth,  and  thus  absolute  truth,  is  ignored  by  lay- 
men and  professional  authorities  alike.  The  thousand 
year  dualism  between  body  and  soul  has  been  especially 
instrumental  in  preventing  the  understanding  of  the  uni- 
versal interrelation.  The  whole  history  of  philosophy  is 
but  a  wrestling  with  the  dualism  between  matter  and 
mind.  It  was  only  by  degrees  that  it  moved  towards  its 
monistic  goal. 

After  the  brilliant  triple  star  Socrates-Rato-Aris- 
totle  was  extinguished,  the  philosophical  sky  was  covered 
with  dark  clouds.  The  heathens  stepped  from  the  stage, 
and  Christianity  and  the  dogmas  of  its  church  predom- 


320 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


inated  the  logic  of  men,  until  at  last  a  new  scientific  light 
arose  in  the  beginning  of  modern  times.  It  was  especially 
Cartesius  and  Spinoza  who  were  most  brilliant;  among 
the  early  thinkers  that  emancipated  their  minds  slowly 
and  under  great  difficulties.  Spinoza,  of  Jewish  descent, 
is  especially  interesting  in  his  fight  against  narrow- 
mindedness  and  for  a  universal  philosophy.  He  wrote 
an  "Essay  on  the  Improvement  of  the  Intellect  and  on  the 
Way  by  which  it  is  best  led  to  a  true  Understanding  of 
Things."  He,  as  well  as  we,  was  looking  for  the  best  way, 
the  true  way,  the  way  of  truth.  He,  as  well  as  we,  seeks 
to  study  and  practice  the  fundamentals  of  the  art  of 
thought. 

He  begins:  ''After  experience  has  taught  me  that 
everything  which  the  ordinary  life  offers  is  vain,  and  I 
have  seen  that  everything  which  I  feared  is  only  good  or 
bad  in  so  far  as  the  mind  is  moved  by  it,  I  finally  resolved 
to  investigate  whether  there  is  any  true  good — whether 
there  is  anything  the  discovery  of  which  will  forever  se- 
cure continuous  and  supreme  joy.  What  is  most  generally 
found  in  life,  and  what  mankind  regards  as  the  highest 
good,  may  be  reduced  to  three  things,  viz.,  wealth,  honor, 
and  sensual  pleasure." 

After  Spinoza  has  then  uncovered  the  shadowy  side 
and  the  vanity  of  ihese  popular  ideals,  he  calls  them  "un- 
safe by  their  very  nature,"  while  he  is  looking  for  "per- 
manent good."  which  is  "insecure  only  as  regards  its 
possession,  but  not  in  its  nature." 

But  how  is  that  to  be  found  ? 

"Here  I  shall  say  shortly  what  I  mean  by  true  good, 
and  what  is  at  the  same  time  the  highest  good.  In  order 
to  grasp  this  fully,  we  must  remember  that  good  or  bad 
are  only  relative  terms,  and  thus  the  same  thing  may  be 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


321 


V' 


/I 


called  good  or  bad  according  to  its  relations,  or  on  the 
other  hand  perfect  or  imperfect.' 

Spinoza,  forestalling  the  object  of  his  research,  dis- 
covers that  the  true,  supreme  and  permanent  good  is  tlie 
"understanding  of  the  unity"  of  the  soul  with  the  entire 
nature.  "This  then,"  he  says,  "is  the  goal  which  I  am 
coveting." 

"To  this  end,  we  must  study  morals,  philosophy,  and 
the  education  of  boys,  and  combine  with  this  study  the 
entire  science  of  medicine,  because  health  materially  assists 
us  in  reaching  our  ideal.  Neither  must  mechanics  be 
neglected,  because  many  difficult  things  are  made  easy 
by  art.  Above  all  we  must  strive  to  find  a  way  for  the 
improvement  of  the  intellect." 

Here  we  have  once  more  arrived  at  the  pivotal  point 
of  our  subject,  my  dear  disciple.  Who  or  what  is  the  in- 
tellect, whence  does  it  come  from,  whither  does  it  lead? 
Answer :  It  is  a  light  which  does  not  shine  within  itself, 
but  throws  rays  outside  of  itself  for  the  illumination  of 
the  world.  For  this  reason  the  science  which  has  the 
faculty  of  understanding  for  its  object,  though  a  limited, 
is  at  the  same  time  a  universal  science,  a  universal  world 
wisdom. 

But  isn't  it  a  contradiction  that  a  special  science  wants 
to  be  general  world  wisdom  ?  Is  not  general  wisdom  that 
which  comprises  all  knowledge,  all  special  science?  Alust 
I  not  know  everything  in  order  to  be  world  wise?  And 
how  can  any  single  brain  assume  to  acquire  all  knowl- 
edge, to  know  everything  ?  Answer :  It  is  impossible  for 
you  to  know  everything ;  but  you  can  rise  to  the  under- 
standing that  your  special  wisdom  and  that  of  all  others 
is  a  part  of  universal  wisdom  and  form  together  a  rela- 
tive whole  which  in  connection  with  all  the  rest  of  the 


322 


LETTERS  ON   LOGIC 


world  constitute  the  absolute  being.  This  understand- 
ing represents  pure  logic  and  is  universal  understand- 
ing, understanding  of  the  universal  being. 

Do  not  be  troubled  by  the  fact  that  Socrates  was  look- 
ing for  virtue  and  the  "best,"  or  Spinoza  for  permanent 
and  supreme  joy,  and  that  their  wisdom  aimed  only  at 
the  narrow  circle  of  human  life,  without  rising  to  the 
cosmic  interrelation.  The  means  and  the  instrument  by 
the  help  of  which  they  strive  for  their  ideal  is  the  intel- 
lect. It  is  quite  natural  that  intellectual  research  led  to 
the  study  of  the  intellect,  to  the  "improvement  of  the 
intellect,"  to  the  "critique  of  reason,"  to  "logic,"  and 
finally  to  the  understanding  that  the  faculty  of  thought 
is  an  inseparable  part  of  the  monistic  whole,  of  the  ab- 
solute which  lends  support,  consistency,  reason  and  sense 
to  all  thought. 

On  his  exploring  tour  for  the  improvement  of  the  in- 
tellect, Spinoza  picks  up  a  remark  which  seems  to  me 
worthy  of  closer  attention.  He  says  in  so  many  words: 
If  we  are  looking  for  a  way  to  improve  the  intellect,  is  it 
not  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  finding  such  a  way  to 
first  improve  the  intellect,  in  order  to  be  at  all  able  to 
discern  the  way  which  leads  to  an  improvement  of  the 
intellect,  and  so  on  without  end?  "We  must  have  a 
hammer  to  forge  the  iron,  and  in  order  to  have  a  ham- 
mer, it  must  be  made;  but  for  this  purpose  we  need 
another  hammer  and  other  instruments,  and  so  forth 
without  end.  In  this  way  it  must  not  be  proven  that 
men  have  no  power  to  forge  iron.  Men  have  rather  ac- 
complished only  the  easiest  tasks  with  difficulty  and  im- 
perfectly by  the  help  of  the  natural  tools  of  their  bodies. 
Gradually  they  accomplished  more  difficult  things  with 


LETTERS   ON    LOGIC 


323 


less  labor  and  better.     And  thus  they  slowly  proceeded 
from  the  simplest  tasks  to  the  instruments." 

I  admire  in  this  process  of  reasoning  the  brilliant 
understanding  that  the  hammer  is  not  such  a  limited  in- 
strument as  the  untrained  human  brain  thinks.  It  thinks 
that  a  hammer  is  not  a  pair  of  tongs.  But  Spinoza  says 
that  the  bare  fist  is  a  hammer  when  used  for  striking, 
much  more  a  stone  or  a  club.  A  pair  of  tongs  used  to 
drive  a  nail  becomes  a  hammer ;  a  hammer  which  I  use 
to  draw  a  nail  becomes  a  pair  of  tongs.  Fist  or  club, 
sense  or  nonsense,  all  is  one.  In  other  words,  things 
are  separated,  but  never  so  far  as  the  fantastical  dreamers 
think.  Just  as  hammer  and  tongs,  saw  and  file, 
are  parts  of  the  class  of  tools,  so  all  things  are  parts 
of  the  one  and  absolute  universe.  Recognize,  then,  dear 
Eugene,  that  the  relative  and  the  absolute  are  not  sepa- 
rated by  such  a  bridgeless  chasm,  that  the  one  should  be 
praised  to  the  skies  and  the  other  damned  to  the  lowest 
pit.  Understand  that  everything  is  dialectically  inter- 
related, that  the  infinite,  eternal,  divine,  can  live  only  in 
the  finite,  special  things,  and  that  on  the  other  hand  the 
parts  of  the  world  can  exist  only  in  the  absolute.  In 
short,  raise  your  conception  to  the  universal  conception, 
and  at  the  same  time,  understand  the  supreme  being 
in  all  its  parts  instead  of  idolizing  it. 


The  Positive  Outcome  of  Philosophy 


BY  JOSEPH  DIETZGEN 
Translated  by  Ernest  Untermann 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME 
OF  PHILOSOPHY 

PREFACE 

As  a  father  cares  for  his  child,  so  an  author  cares  for 
his  product.  I  may  be  able  to  give  a  little  additional  zest 
to  the  contents  of  this  work  by  adding  an  explanation 
how  I  came  to  write  it. 

Although  born  by  my  mother  in  1828,  I  did  not  enter 
my  own  world  until  *'the  mad  year,"  1848.  I  was  learn- 
ing the  trade  of  my  father  in  my  paternal  shop,  when  I 
saw  in  the  "Kolnische  Zeitung,"  how  the  people  of  Ber- 
lin had  overcome  the  King  of  Prussia  and  conquered 
"liberty."  This  "liberty"  now  became  the  first  object  of 
my  musings.  The  parties  of  that  period,  the  disturbers 
and  howlers,  made  a  great  deal  of  fuss  about  it.  But 
the  more  I  heard  about  it^  and  hence  became  enthusiastic 
over  it,  the  duller,  hazier  and  more  indistinct  became  the 
meaning  of  it,  so  that  it  turned  things  upside  down  in 
my  head.  The  psychologists  have  long  known  that  en- 
thusiasm for  a  cause  and  understanding  of  that  cause  are 
two  different  things.  Mark,  for  instance,  the  zeal  dis- 
played by  Catholic  peasants  in  singing  their  mass,  al- 
though they  do  not  understand  a  word  of  Latin. 

What  is  meant  by  political  freedom?  What  is  its 
beginning,  what  its  end  ?  Where  and  how  are  vvc  to  find 
a  positive  and  definite  knowledge  of  it?    In  the  parties  of 


827 


r,28 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


the  middle,  the  so-called  ''constitutionals,"  as  well  as 
among  the  bourgeois  democrats,  there  was  no  end  of 
dissension.  Nothing  could  be  learned  there.  Among 
them,  as  among  the  Protestants,  every  one  was  a  chosen 
interpreter  of  the  gospel. 

However,  the  papers  of  the  extremes,  that  is,  the 
"Neue  Preussische"  with  its  **For  God,  King  and  Father- 
land," and  the  "Neue  Rheinische,"  the  organ  of  "Dem- 
ocracy," gave  me  a  hint  that  liberty  had  some  sort  of 
a  material  basis.  During  the  following  years,  my  life  in 
rural  surroundings  gave  me  leisure  to  follow  this  scent. 
On  one  side,  it  was  the  work  of  men  like  Gerlach,  Stahl, 
and  Leo,  on  the  other  of  Marx  and  Engels,  that  gave 
me  a  foothold. 

Though  the  communists  and  the  ultra-conservatives 
came  to  widely  different  conclusions,  still  I  felt  and  read 
between  the  lines  that  both  of  these  extreme  parties  based 
their  demands  on  one  fundamental  premise.  They  knew 
what  they  wanted ;  they  both  had  a  definite  beginning  and 
end.  And  that  permitted  the  assumption  that  both  had  a 
common  philosophy.  The  Prussian  landholding  aris- 
tocracy based  the  cross,  which  they  wore  as  an 
emblem  on  their  hats,  on  the  historically  acquired  royal 
miUtary  power  and  on  the  positive  divine  revelation  of 
the  Bible  printed  in  black  and  supported  by  the  ecclesi- 
astical police  force  dressed  in  black.  And  the  Communist 
point  of  departure  was  quite  as  positive,  unquestionable 
and  material,  viz.,  the  growing  supremacy  of  the  mass 
of  the  people  with  their  proletarian  interests  based  on 
the  historically  acquired  productive  power  of  the  working 
class.  The  spirit  of  both  of  these  hostile  camps  was  de- 
scending from  the  results  of  philosophy,  primarily  from 
the  Hegelian  school.    Both  of  them  were  armed  with  the 


•V.    ^ 


VJL 


U 


L^^v^O^^x  d 


^(C\^  Oc'  ^  C^~^ 


PREFACE 


329 


philosophical  achievements  of  the  century,  which  they 
had  not  only  mechanically  assimilated,  but  rather  con- 
tinually provided  with  fresh  food  like  a  living  being. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  fifties,  a  pamphlet  was  pub- 
lished by  one  of  the  cross  bearers,  Stahl,  entitled  "Against 
Bunsen."  This  Bunsen  was  at  the  time  the  Prussian  Em- 
bassador at  London,  a  crony  of  the  ruling  Prussian  King 
Frederic  William  IV.,  and,  apart  from  this,  nothing  but 
a  liberal  muddle  head  who  was  interested  in  political 
and  religious  tolerance. 

The  pamphlet  of  the  cross  bearer  Stahl  attacked  this 
tolerance  and  demonstrated  valiantly  that  tolerance  could 
be  preached  only  by  a  muddled  free  lance  to  whom  religion 
and  fatherland  were  indifferent  conceptions.  Religious 
faith,  so  far  as  it  is  truth,  so  he  said,  has  a  true  power  and 
can  transpose  mountains.  Such  a  faith  could  not  be  tol- 
erant and  indifferent,  but  must  push  its  propaganda  with 
fire  and  sword. 

In  the  same  way  in  which  Stahl  defended  the  inter- 
ests of  the  landed  aristocracy,  the  philosopher  Feuerbach 
spoke  in  the  interest  of  the  infidel  revolutionaries.  Both 
of  them  were  to  that  extent  in  accord  with  the  "Com- 
munist Manifesto"  that  they  no  longer  regarded  Liberty 
as  a  phantasmagoria,  but  as  a  being  of  flesh  and  blood. 

When  I  had  realized  this,  it  dawned  upon  me  that 
any  conception  elucidated  by  philosophy,  in  this  case  the 
idea  of  liberty,  had  this  peculiarity :  Liberty  is  as  yet  an 
abstract  idea.  In  order  to  become  real,  it  must  assume 
a  concrete,  special  form. 

Political  freedom  as  a  glittering  generality  is  a  thing 
of  no  reality.  Under  such  fantastic  ideal  the  constitu- 
tionalists or  the  liberals  conceal  the  liberty  of  the  money 
bag.    Under  these  circumstances,  they  are  quite  right  in 


330 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


demanding  German  unity  with  Prussia  as  a  head,  or  a 
repubHc  with  a  grand  duke  at  the  top.  The  landed  aris- 
tocracy also  are  right  in  demanding  the  Hberty  of  that 
aristocracy.  And  the  Communists  are  still  more  right, 
for  they  demand  the  liberty  that  will  guarantee  bread 
and  butter  for  the  mass  of  the  people  and  will  fully  set 
free  all  the  forces  of  production. 

From  this  experience  and  conclusion  it  follows  that 
true  liberty  and  the  highest  right  are  composed  of  in- 
dividual liberties  and  rights,  that  are  opposed  to  one  an- 
other without  being  inconceivable.  It  is  easy  to  proceed 
froin  this  premise  to  the  rule  of  thought  laid  down  in 
this  work,  that  the  brain  need  not  make  any  excursions 
into  the  transcendental  in  order  to  find  his  way  through 
the  contradictions  of  the  real  world. 

In  this  way  I  passed  from  politics  to  philosophy,  and 
from  philosophy  to  the  theory  of  positive  knowledge 
which  I  presented  to  the  public  in  18G9  in  my  little 
work  *'The  Nature  of  Human  Brain  Work."  Further 
studies  on  the  general  powers  of  understanding  have 
added  to  my  special  knowledge  of  this  subject,  so  that  I 
am  now  enabled  to  fill  the  old  wine  into  a  new  bottle 
instead  of  publishing  a  new  edition  of  my  old  work. 

The  science  which  I  present  in  the  following  pages  is 
very  limited  in  its  circumference,  but  all  the  better 
founded  and  important  in  its  consequences.  This,  I  trust, 
will  be  accepted  as  a  sufficient  excuse  for  the  recurring 
repetition  of  the  same  statements  in  a  different  form.  My 
remaining  confined  to  a  single  point  requires  no  apology. 
What  is  left  undone  by  one,  is  bequeathed  as  a  problem 
to  others. 

There  might  be  some  dispute  over  the  question,  how 
much  of  this  positive  achievement  of  philosophy  is  due 


PREFACE 


331 


to  the  author  and  to  his  predecessors.  But  that  is  an  in- 
terminable task  of  small  concern.  No  matter  who  hoisted 
the  calf  out  of  the  well,  so  long  as  it  is  out.  Anywiiy, 
this  whole  work  treats  of  tlie  concatenation  and  inter- 
dependence of  things,  and  this  also  throws  a  bright  light 
on  the  question  of  mine  and  thine. 

J.   DiETZGEN. 

Chicago,  March  30,  1887. 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME 
OF  PHILOSOPHY 


POSITIVE  KNOWLEDGE  AS  A  SPECIAL  OBJECT 

That  which  we  call  science  nowadays  was  known  to 
our  ancestors  by  a  name  which  then  sounded  very  re- 
spectable and  distinguished,  but  which  has  in  the  mean- 
time acquired  a  somewhat  ludicrous  taste,  the  name  of 
wisdom.  This  gradual  transition  of  wisdom  into  science 
is  a  positive  achievement  of  philosophy  which  well  de- 
serves our  attention. 

The  term  "ancestors"  is  very  indefinite.  It  comprises 
people  who  lived  more  than  three  thousand  years  ago  as 
well  as  those  who  died  less  than  a  hundred  years  ago. 
And  a  wise  man  was  still  respected  a  hundred  years  ago, 
while  to-day  that  title  always  implies  a  little  ridicule  and 
disrespect. 

The  wisdom  of  our  ancestors  is  so  old  that  it  has  not 
even  a  date.  It  reaches  back,  the  same  as  the  origin  of 
language,  to  the  period  when  man  developed  from  the 
animal  world.  But  if  we  call  a  wise  man,  in  the  language 
of  our  day,  a  philosopher,  then  it  is  at  once  plain  that 
wisdom  is  descended  from  the  ancient  Greeks.  This 
wonderful  nation  produced  the  first  philosophers. 

Whether  this  term  indicates  a  man  who  loves  wisdom 
or  one  who  loves  science,  is  of  little  moment  to-day,  and 


333 


334 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


there  was  no  such  distinction  in  ancient  times.  We  re- 
member that  it  was  entirely  undecided  among  the  Greeks 
whether  a  mathematician,  an  astronomer,  a  physician,  an 
orator,  or  a  student  of  the  art  of  living  deserved  the  title 
of  a  philosopher.  These  professions  were  not  clearly 
distinguished.  They  were  wrapped  up  one  in  another 
like  the  embryo  in  a  mother's  womb.  While  humanity 
had  still  little  knowledge,  a  man  might  well  be  wise.  But 
to-day  it  is  necessary  to  specialize,  to  devote  one's  self 
to  a  special  science,  because  the  field  of  exploration  has 
grown  so  extended.  The  philosopher  of  to-day  is  no 
longer  a  wise  man,  but  a  specialist. 

The  stars  are  the  objects  of  astronomy,  the  animals 
of  zoology,  the  plants  of  botany.  Who  and  what  are 
now  the  objects  of  philosophy?  This  may  be  explained 
in  one  word  to  an  expert.  But  if  we  try  to  give  informa- 
tion to  the  general  public,  the  matter  becomes  difficult. 

What  do  I  know  about  the  shoe  industry,  if  I  know 
that  it  produces  shoes  ?  I  know  something  general  about 
it,  but  I  have  no  knowledge  of  its  details.  It  is  impossible 
to  give  sufficient  information  on  the  details  of  shoemak- 
ing  to  any  one  in  a  few  words,  not  even  to  an  educated 
person.  Neither  is  it  possible  to  explain  the  object  of 
philosophy  in  such  a  way.  The  object  may  be  stated,  but 
not  explained,  for  it  cannot  be  made  plain  and  brought 
home  to  the  understanding  in  a  few  words. 

That  is  the  word,  understanding.  The  understand- 
ing is  the  object  of  philosophy. 

We  must  at  once  call  the  reader's  attention  to  the 
ambiguity  of  this  term.  Understanding,  knowledge,  is 
the  object  of  all  science.  That  is  nothing  special.  Every 
study  seeks  to  enlighten  the  brain.  But  philosophy 
wishes  to  be  a  science  and  does  not  desire  to  relapse  into 


POSITIVE  KNOWLEDGE  AS  A  SPECIAL  OBJECT 


335 


antiquity  by  becoming  universal  wisdom.  To  say  that 
understanding  is  the  object  of  philosophy  is  to  give 
merely  the  same  reply  which  Thales,  Pythagoras,  or 
Plato  v/ould  have  given.  Has  proud  philosophy  gained 
nothing  since?    What  is  its  positive  achievement?   That 

is  the  question. 

Philosophy  to-day  still  has  understanding  for  its  ob- 
ject. But  it  is  no  longer  indefinite  understanding  which 
tries  to  embrace  everything,  but  rather  the  understanding 
of  the  method  by  which  knowledge  may  be  gained. 
Philosophy  now  wishes  to  learn  how  it  comes  to  pass 
that  other  objects  may  be  illumined  by  the  mind.  To 
speak  plainly,  it  is  no  longer  the  understanding  which 
seeks  to  know  everything  as  it  did  at  the  time  of  Socrates 
that  is  now  the  special  study  of  philosophy,  but  rather 
the  mind  itself,  its  method  and  the  perceptive  powers  of 
thought  and  understanding. 

If  this  were  all,  if  the  world's  wise  men  had  done 
nothing  but  to  at  last  find  the  object  of  philosophy,  it 
would  be  a  very  scanty  achievement.  No,  the  harvest  is 
much  richer.  The  present  day  theory  of  human  under- 
standing is  a  real  science,  which  well  deserves  to  be 
popularized.  Our  ancestors  sought  understanding  after 
the  manner  of  Socrates  and  Plato  in  the  entrails  of  the 
human  brain,  while  at  the  same  time  despising  the  ex- 
perience outside  of  it.  They  hoped  to  find  truth  by 
cudgeling  their  brain.  "Honor  to  Socrates,  honor  to 
Plato ;  but  still  more  honor  to  Truth !" 

Aristotle  showed  a  little  more  interest  in  the  outer 
world.  With  the  downfall  of  the  old  social  stage  the  old 
philosophy  naturally  succumbed  also.  It  did  not  revive 
until  a  few  hundred  years  ago,  at  the  beginning  of  mod- 
ern times. 


336 


E  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


A  Short  while  ago,  Shakespeare  attracted  mucli  atten- 
tion, when  some  one  claimed  to  have  discovered  that  it 
was  not  he  who  wrote  those  famous  dramas  and  trage- 
dies, but  his  contemporary  Bacon  of  Verulam,  Lord 
Chancellor  of  England.  Whether  Shakespeare  keeps 
his  laurels  or  not.  Bacon's  name  is  still  great  enough, 
for  It  IS  generally  accepted  as  the  mile  stone  of  modern 
philosophy. 

One  might  say  that  philosophy  was  asleep  from  the 
time  of  Aristotle  to  that  of  Bacon.    At  least  it  produced 
no  remarkable  results  during  that  period,  and  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  philosophy  from  ancient  Greek  davs  to 
the  present  times  moved  in  a  mystic  fog  which  detracted 
much  from  its  study  in  the  eyes  of  educated  and  honest 
men.    But  the  philosophers  themselves  are  less  to  blame 
for  this  than  the  concealment  of  the  object.    Only  after 
the  entire  social  development  has  furthered  the  human 
understanding  to  the  point  where  it  can  benefit  from  the 
hght   spread   by  the   various  branches  of  science,   does 
philosophy  become  conscious  of  its  special  object  and 
able  to  separate  its  positive  achievements  from  the  rub- 
bish of  the  past. 

If  we  compare  the  old  Grecian  wisdom  with  modern 
science,  the  outcome  of  philosophy  looks  insignificant  by 
the  side  of  the  achievements  of  science.     Nevertheless 
great  as  the  value  of  the  aggregate  product  of  science' 
may  be,  it  is  composed  of  in<lividual  values,  and  every  one 
of  Its  parts  IS  worthy  of  consideration.     The  method 
the  way,  the  form,  in  which  the  mind  arrives  at  its  prac- 
tical creations  is  one  of  these  parts.     The  mind,  on  its 
march  from  ignorance  to  its  present  wealth  has  not  onlv 
gathered  a  treasury  of  knowledge,  but  also  improved  its 
methods,  so  that  the  further  constructive  work  of  sci- 


1 


POSITIVE  KNOWLEDGE  AS  A  SPECIAL  OBJECT 


ence  proceeds  faster  now.  Who  will  f;iil  to  recognize 
that  material  production  has  accumulated  a  treasure  m 
the  methods  by  which  it  produces  to-day,  which  is  by  no 
means  of  less  value  than  the  accumulated  national  wealth 
itself?  The  positive  outcome  of  philosophy  bears  the 
same  relation  to  the  v/ealth  of  science. 


II 


THE  POWER  OF   COGNITION   IS   KIN  TO  THE   UNIVERSE 

The  way  of  Truth,  or  the  true  way,  is  not  musing,  but 
the  conscious  connection  of  our  thoughts  with  the  actual 
life— that  is  the  quintessence  of  the  teachings  of  phi- 
losophy produced  by  evolution.  But  this  is  not  every- 
thing. If  I  know  that  a  tanner  makes  leather,  I  do  not 
by  any  means  know  everything  he  does,  because  there 
still  remains  the  manner  and  method  of  his  manipulations. 
In  the  same  way,  the  doctrine  of  the  interrelation  of 
mind  and  matter,  which  is  the  product  of  the  entire  so- 
cial development,  requires  a  better  and  more  specific 
substantiation,  so  that  its  true  quality  as  a  positive 
achievement  of  philosophy,  or  of  the  theory  of  knowledge 
may  be  better  understood.  If  the  matter  is  represented 
in  this  bare  manner— it  does,  indeed,  resemble  the  tgg  of 
Columbus^one  does  not  see  why  so  much  should  be 
made  of  it.  But  if  we  enter  into  the  details  that  have 
produced  the  result,  we  do  not  only  learn  to  better  re- 
spect the  prominent  philosophers,  but  their  works  also 
reveal  a  rich  mine  o^  ^-necial  and  comprehensive  knowl- 
edge. 


I 


338 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


All  sciences  are  closely  related,  for  advances  in  one 
branch  are  preparations  for  advances  in  others.  As- 
tronomy is  unthinkable  without  mathematics  and  optics. 
Every  science  has  begun  unscientifically,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  accumulation  of  individual  knowledge  a 
more  or  less  exact  systematic  organization  of  this  knowl- 
edge has  resulted.  No  science  has  as  yet  arrived  at  com- 
pleteness and  perfectness.  We  have  as  yet  more  the 
results  of  experimental  effort  than  accomplished  perfec- 
tion. Philosophy  is  no  better  off  in  this  respect.  We 
rather  believe  we  are  doing  something  to  overcome  a 
deeply  rooted  prejudice  when  we  state  that  philosophy 
is  no  worse  off  than  other  sciences,  so  long  as  we  suc- 
ceed in  ascertaining  that  it  has  accomplished  positive 
results  and  in  pointing  them  out. 

It  is  a  positive  accomplishment  of  philosophy  that 
mankind  to-day  has  a  clear  and  unequivocal  conception 
of  the  necessity  of  the  division  of  labor  as  a  means  of 
being  successful.  Our  present  day  philosophers  no 
longer  make  excursions  into  dreamland  in  the  quest  of  the 
True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good,  as  did  the  ancients. 
The  True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good,  are  nevertheless 
the  objects  of  all  modern  science,  only,  thanks  to  evolu- 
tion, these  objects  are  now  sought  by  special  means.  And 
the  clear  consciousness  of  this  condition  of  things  is  a 
philosophical  consciousness. 

It  is  a  part  of  the  theory  of  understanding  to  know 
that  in  order  to  accomplish  something  one  must  limit 
oneself  to  a  specialty.  That  is  a  fundamental  demand 
for  the  use  of  common  sense,  which  the  primitive  musing 
brain  did  not  realize.  Thinking  must  be  done  with  wide 
open  and  active  eyes,  with  alert  senses,  not  with  closed 
eyes  or  fixed  gaze.    This  is  a  part  of  logic.    We  do  not 


THE  POWER  OF  COGXTTION 


330 


deny  that  men  have  always  done  their  thinking  by  means 
of  the  senses.     We  only  claim  that  they  did  not  do  so 
from  principle,  otherwise  the  old  complaint  about  the  un- 
reliability of  the  senses  as  a  means  of  knowledge  would 
not  have  lived  so  long.     Neither  would  the  inner  man 
have   been    so   excessively   overestimated,   nor   abstract 
thought  so  much  celebrated,  just  as  if  it  alone  were  the 
child  of  nobler  birth.    I  do  not  wish  to  detract  from  the 
merits  of  the  power  of  abstraction,  but  I  simply  claim 
that  the  clay  of  which  Adam  was  made  was  no  less  divine 
than  the  spiritual  breath  that  gave  him  his  life.    Nor  do 
I  mean  that  it  is  due  to  philosophy  alone  that  mankind 
learned  not  to  strain  "understanding"  in  abstract  vapor- 
ings,  but  instead  to  introduce  the  division  of  labor  and 
to  take  up  the  various  specialties  with  open  senses.    The 
technique  of  understanding  is  the  product  of  the  entire 
movement  of  civilization,  and  as  such  a  positive  accom- 
plishment of  philosophy.    The  total  process  of  evolution 
has  placed  the  philosophers  on  their  feet. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  up  to  the  present  time,  phi- 
losophy partook  more  of  the  character  of  a  desire  and  love 
of  science  than  of  world  wisdom.  This  wisdom  does  not 
amount  to  much,  even  to-day.  This  is  plainly  demon- 
strated by  the  dissensions  of  the  educated  and  unedu- 
cated on  all  questions  pertaining  to  wisdom  of  life.  Soc- 
rates in  the  market  of  Athens,  and  Plato  in  his  dialogues, 
have  probably  said  better  things  about  the  questions: 
''What  is  virtue?  What  is  justice?  What  is  moral  and 
reasonable?"  than  the  professors  of  philosophy  would 
know  how  to  say  to-day.  Kant  has  well  said  that  the 
unanimity  of  the  experts  is  the  test  by  which  one  may 
decide  what  is  a  scientific  fact  and  what  is  mere  dispute. 
From  this  it  is  easy  to  judge  that  wisdom  of  life  is  still 


310 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


in  a  bad  way  and  will  have  to  wait  for  its  scientific 
transformation. 

We  declared  understanding  itself  to  be  the  special 
object  of  philosophy  and  shall  now  attempt  to  outline  the 
results  so  far  obtained  by  it. 

One  of  the  first  requirements  for  the  education  of 
the  object  of  philosophy  is  to  recall  its  various  names. 
The  understanding,  or  the  power  of  knowledge,  is  also 
called  intelligence,  intellect,  mind,  spirit,  reason,  power 
of  cognition,  of  conception,  of  distinction,  of  imagination, 
of  judgment,  and  of  drawing  conclusions.  The  attempt 
has  frequently  been  made  to  analyze  understanding  or 
to  dissect  it  into  its  various  parts  and  to  specialize  them 
by  the  help  of  those  names.  Especially  logic  knows  how 
to  give  particular  explanations  of  what  is  imagination, 
a  conception,  a  judgment,  and  a  conclusion.  It  has  even 
divided  these  sections  into  subsections,  so  that  a  trained 
logician  might  reproach  me  with  being  ignorant  for  ap- 
plying various  names  to  intelligence,  because  only  the 
common  people  confound  those  names  and  use  them  as 
synonyms,  while  science  has  long  used  them  in  their 
proper  order  for  designating  special  parts  of  intelligence. 

To  such  a  reproach,  I  answer  that  Aristotle  and  the 
subsequent  formal  logicians  have  made  some  pretty 
pointed  observations  and  excellent  arrangements  in  this 
field.  But  these  proved  to  be  premature  or  inadequate, 
because  the  observations  on  which  the  ancient  intellec- 
tual explorers  relied  were  too  scanty.  This  scantiness 
of  the  observations  made  in  regard  to  intelligence,  and 
by  intelligence,  has  kept  the  human  race  in  the  mazes  of 
intellectual  bondage  and  by  this  mysticism  has  even  pre- 
vented the  most  advanced  minds  from  penetrating  deeper 
into  this  obscure  question.    The  history  of  philosophy  is 


THE  POWER  OF  COGNITION 


341 


not  the  history  of  a  useless  struggle,  but  yet  a  history  of 
a  hard  struggle  with  the  question :  What  is,  what  does, 
of  what  parts  consists,  and  of  what  nature  is  understand- 
ing, intelligence,  reason,  intellect,  etc.?  So  long  as  this 
question  is  unsettled,  the  questioner  is  entitled  to  dis- 
pense with  any  and  all  sections  and  subsections  of  the  in- 
tellectual object  and  to  regard  the  various  names  as 
synonymous. 

The  main  accompHshment  in  the  solution  of  this  ques- 
tion is  the  ever  clearer  and  preciser  knowledge  of  our 
days  that  the  nature  of  the  human  intellect  is  of  the  same 
kind,  genus  or  quality  as  the  whole  of  nature.  In  order 
that  the  theory  of  understanding  may  be  able  to  eluci- 
date this  point,  it  must  divest  itself,  more  or  less,  of  the 
character  of  a  speciality  and  occupy  itself  with  all  of 
nature,  assume  the  character  of  cosmogony. 

It  is  principally  an  achievement  of  philosophy  that  we 
now  know  definitely  and  down  to  the  minutest  detail 
that  the  human  mind  is  a  definite  and  limited  part  of  the 
unlimited  universe. 

Just  as  a  piece  of  oak  wood  has  the  twofold  quality  of 
partaking  not  alone,  w^ith  its  oaken  nature,  of  the  general 
nature  of  wood,  but  also  of  the  unlimited  generality  of  all 
nature,  so  is  the  intellect  a  limited  specialty,  which  has 
the  quality  of  being  universal  as  a  part  of  the  universe 
and  of  being  conscious  of  its  own  and  of  all  universality. 
The  boundless  universal  cosmic  nature  is  embodied  in 
the  intellect,  in  the  animal  as  well  as  in  man,  the  same  as 
it  is  embodied  in  the  oak  wood,  in  all  other  wood,  in  all 
matter  and  force.  The  worldly  monistic  nature  which  is 
mortal  and  immortal,  limited  and  unlimited,  special  and 
general,  all  in  one,  is  found  in  everything,  and  every- 


3-L2 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


thing  is  found  in  nature — understanding  or  the  power  of 
knowledge  is  no  exception. 

It  is  this  twofold  nature  of  the  universe,  this  being 
at  the  same  time  limited  and  unlimited,  this  reflection  of 
its  eternal  essence  and  eternal  truth  in  changing  phe- 
nomena, which  has  rendered  its  understanding  very  dif- 
ficult for  the  human  mind.  This  intricate  quality  has 
been  represented  by  religion  in  the  fantastic  picture  of 
two  worlds,  separating  the  temporal  from  the  eternal,  the 
limited  from  the  unlimited,  too  unreasonably  far.  But 
nowadays  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the  eternity 
of  material  forces  is  a  matter  of  fact  accepted  by  natural 
science. 

The  positive  outcome  of  philosophy,  then,  is  the 
knowledge  of  the  monistic  way  in  which  the  seeming 
duality  of  the  universe  is  active  in  the  human  under- 
standing. 


Ill 


AS  TO  HOW  THE  INTELLECT  IS   LIMITED  AND   UNLIMITED 

Understanding  taught  by  experience  no  longer  muses 
about  universal  nature,  but  acquires  a  knowledge  of  it  by 
special  studies.  By  degrees  philosophy,  first  uncon- 
sciously and  lately  clearly  and  plainly,  has  taken  up  the 
problem  of  ascertaining  the  limits  of  understanding. 

This  philosophical  problem  first  assumed  the  form  of 
polemics.  It  became  opposed  to  the  religious  dogma 
which  represented  the  human  mind  as  a  small,  subser- 
vient, limited  and  restricted  emanation  of  the  unlimited 
divine  spirit.     This  terrestrial  emanation  was  regarded 


INTELLECT  LIMITED  AND  UNLIMITED 


343 


as  too  limited  to  understand  and  find  its  divine  source. 
The  study  of  the  limits  of  the  understanding  has  now 
emancipated  itself  from  this  dogma,  but  not  to  such  an 
extent  that  there  is  no  longer  any  mysterious  obscurity 
floating  around  the  understanding  and  intelligence,  and 
especially  around  the  question  whether  the  human  mind 
can  penetrate  only  into  some  things  while  others  will  re- 
main in  the  unscrutable  darkness  of  faith  and  intuition, 
or  whether  it  may  penetrate  boldly  and  without  hind- 
rance into  the  infinity  of  the  physical  and  chemical  urn- 
verse.  , 
We  here  desire  to  claim  as  a  positive  outcome  of 
philosophy  that  it  has  at  last  acquired  the  clear  and  ex- 
act knowledge  that  a  socalled  infinite  spirit,  in  the  re- 
ligious sense,  is  a  fantastic,  unscientific  conception.     In 
the  natural  sense  of  the  word,  the  human  powers  of 
understanding  are  universal  and  yet  in  spite  of  their 
universality  they  are,  quite  naturally,  limited.     The 
human  understanding  has   its   limits,  why   should   it 
not?     Only  drop  the  illusion  that  a  dark  mystery  is 
concealed  beyond  these  limits. 

The  understanding  is  a  force  among  others,  and 
everything  that  is  located  alongside  of  other  things  is 
limited  and  restricted  by  them.  We  can  understand 
everything,  but  we  can  also  touch,  see,  hear,  feel,  and 
taste  everything.  We  also  have  the  power  of  moving 
about,  and  other  qualities.  One  art  limits  another,  and 
yet  each  is  unlimited  in  its  own  field.  The  various 
human  powers  belong  together  and  constitute  together 
the  human  wealth.  Be  careful  not  to  separate  the 
power  of  understanding  from  other  natural  powers. 
In  a  certain  sense  it  must  be  separated,  because  it  is 
the  special  object  of  our  study,  but  it  must  always  be 


« 

;•»' 


34'i 


THE  POSITINE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


remembered  that  such  a  separation  has  only  a  theoret- 
ical value. 

Just  as  our  power  of  vision  can  see  everything,  so 
our  understanding  can  grasp  everything. 

Let  us  look  a  little  closer  at  this  statement. 

How  can  we  see  everything?  Xot  from  any  single 
standpoint.  In  that  sense  our  powers  of  vision  are 
limited.  But  what  is  not  visible  in  the  distance,  be- 
comes so  on  approaching  nearer  to  it.  What  one  eye 
cannot  see,  that  of  others  can,  and  what  is  invisible  to 
the  naked  eye,  is  revealed  by  the  telescope  and  micro- 
scope. Nevertheless  the  vision  remains  limited,  even 
though  it  may  be  the  sharpest,  and  armed  with  the 
best  artificial  means.  Even  if  we  regard  all  the  eyes 
of  the  past  and  future  generations  of  humanity  as 
organs  of  the  universal  human  vision,  this  vision  still 
remains  limited.  Nevertheless,  no  one  will  complain 
about  the  limits  of  human  power,  because  we  cannot 
see  sounds  with  our  eyes  or  hear  the  light  with  our 
ears. 

The  understanding  of  man  is  limited,  just  as  his 
vision  is.    The  eye  can  look  through  a  glass  pane,  but 
not  through  a  plate  of  iron.    Yet  no  one  will  call  any 
eye  limited,  because  it  cannot  see  through  a  block  of 
metal.     These  drastic  examples  are  very  opportune, 
because  there  are  certain  wise  men  who  reflectively 
lay  their  finger  on  their  nose  and  call  attention  to  the 
limits  of  our  intellect  in   that   sense,  just  as   if  the 
knowledge   gained    on    earth    by    scientific  means  were 
only  a  nominal,  not  a  real,  understanding  and  know- 
ing.   The  human  intellect  is  thus  degraded  to  the  posi- 
tion of  a  substitute  of  some  "higher"  intellect  which 
is  not  discovered,  but  must  be  "believed"  to  exist  in 


INTELLECT  LIMITED  AND  UNLIMITED 


345 


the  small  head  of  a  fairy  or  in  the  large  head  of  an 
almighty  being  above  the  clouds.  Would  any  one 
try  to  make  us  believe  that  there  is  a  great  and 
almighty  eye  that  can  look  through  blocks  of  metal  the 
same  as  through  glass?  The  idea  of  a  spiritual  organ 
with  an  infinite  understanding  is  just  as  senseless.  An 
unlimited  single  thing,  an  unlimited  single  being,  is 
impossible,  unless  we  regard  the  whole  world,  the 
world  without  beginning  and  without  end,  the  infinite 
world,  as  a  unit.  Within  this  world  everything  is  sub- 
ject to  change,  but  nothing  can  go  beyond  its  genus 
without  losing  its  name  and  character.  There  are 
various  kinds  of  fire,  but  none  that  does  not  burn,  none 
which  has  not  the  general  nature  of  fire.  Neither  is 
there  any  water  without  the  general  nature  of  water, 
nor  a  spirit  that  is  elevated  above  the  general  nature 
of  spirits.  In  our  days  of  clear  conceptions  the  ten- 
dency   toward   the    transcendental   is    mere    fantastic 

vaporing. 

It  is  not  alone  unscientific,  it  is  fantastic,  to  think 
even  afar  of  a  higher  power  of  thought  or  understand- 
ing,than  the  human  one.  One  might  as  well  think  of 
a  higher  horse  which  runs  with  eight,  sixteen,  or  six- 
teen hundred  legs  and  carries  away  his  rider  in  a 
higher  air  at  a  higher  speed  than  that  of  the  wind  or 

the  light. 

It  is  a  part  of  the  achievements  of  philosophy,  of 
correct  methods  of  thought,  of  the  art  of  thought  or 
dialectics,  to  know  that  we  must  use  all  conceptions, 
without  exception,  in  a  limited,  rational,  commonplace 
wav,  unless  we  wish  to  stray  into  that  region  where 
there  are  mountains  without  valleys  and  where  every 
theory  of  understanding  loses  its  mind. 


340 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


It  IS  true  that  all  things,  including  our  understand- 
ing, may  be  improved.  Everything  develops,  why 
should  not  our  intellects  do  so?  At  the  same  time 
we  may  know  a  priori  that  our  intellect  must  remain 
limited,  of  course  not  limited  in  the  sense  of  the  dunce, 
just  as  our  eyes  will  never  become  so  sharp  that  they 
can  see  through  metal  blocks.  Every  individual  has 
Its  limited  brain,  but  humanity,  so  the  positive  achieve- 
ments of  philosophy  have  shown,  has  an  intellect  of 
as  universal  a  power  as  any  that  can  be  imagined,  re- 
quired, or  found,  in  heaven  or  on  earth. 

We  maintain  that  philosophy  so  far  has  acquired 

something  positive,  has  left  us  a  legacy,  and  that  this 

consists  in  a  clear  revelation  of  the  method  of  using 

our  intellect  in  order  to  produce  excellent  pictures  of 

^nature  and  its  phenomena. 

For  the  purpose  of  making  the  reader  familiar  with 
this  method,  with  this  legacy  of  philosophv,  we  must 
enter  more  closely  into  the  essence  of  the 'instrument 
which  lifts  all  the  treasures  of  science.     We  are  espe- 
cially interested  in  the  question,  whether  it  is  a  finite 
or  mfinite  and  universal  instrument  with  which  we  ffo 
fishing  for  truth.    It  is  the  custom  to  belittle  the  facul- 
ties of  the  human  understanding,  in  order  to  keep  it 
under    the    supremacy    of   the    divine    metaphysical 
augurs.      It    is   quite   easy   to   see,   therefore,    that   the 
question  of  the  essence  of  our  powers  of  understanding 
IS  intimately  related  to,  or  even   identical  with,  the 
question  of  how  we  may  be  permitted  to  use  them 
whether  they  should  be  used  only  for  the  investigation 
of  the  limited,  finite,  or    also    for    the    study    of    the 
eternal,  infinite,  and  immeasurable. 

We  object  here  to  the  tendency  of  belittling  the 


INTELLECT  LIMITED  AND  UNLIMITED 


347 


human  mind.    About  a  hundred  years  ago,  the  philos- 
opher Kant  found  it  appropriate  to  draw  the  sword 
against  those  who  played  fast  and  lose  with  the  human 
mind,  against  the  socalled  metaphysicians.    They  had 
made  a  miraculous  thing  of  the  instrument  of  thought, 
a  matter  for  effusions.     In  order  to  be  able  clearly  to 
state  the  outcome  of  philosophy,  we  must  acquaint  the 
reader  with  the  fact  that  this  instrument  of  thought,  in 
its  way,  is  one  of  the  best  and  most  magnificent  things 
in  existence,  but  that,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  bound  to 
its  general  kind  or  genus.     The  human  understanding 
perceives  quite  perfectly,  but  we  must  not  have  an 
exaggerated  idea  of  its  perfection,  any  more  than  we 
would  of  a  perfect  eye  or  ear,  that,  be  they  ever  so  per- 
fect, cannot  see  the  grass  grow  or  hear  the  fleas  cough. 
God  is  a  spirit,  says  the  bible,  and  God  is  infinite. 
If  he  is  a  spirit,  an  intellect,  such  as  man,  then  it  would 
be  fair  to  assume  that  man's  intellect  is  also  infinite, 
or  even  is  the  divine  spirit  itself  which  has  taken  up  its 
abode    in    the    human   brains.      People    cudgeled    their 
brains  with  such  confused  conceptions,  so  long  as  the 
object  of  modern  philosophy,  the  intellect,  was  a  mys- 
tery.    Now  it  is  recognized  as  a  finite,  natural  phe- 
nomenon, an  energy  or  a  force  which  is  not  the  infinite, 
though  it  is,  like  all  other  matter  and  force,  a  part  of 
the  infinite,  eternal,  immeasurable. 

Leaving  all  religious  notions  aside,  the  infinite,  \m^ 
measurable,  eternal,  is  not  personal,  but  objective;  it 
is  no  longer  referred  to  as  a  masculine,  but  as  a  neuter. 
It  may  be  called  by  many  names,  such  as  the  universe, 
the  cosmos,  or  the  world.  In  order  to  understand 
clearly  that  the  spirit  which  we  have  in  our  minds,  is 
a  finite  part  of  the  world,  we  must  get  a  little  better 


i 


348 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


acquainted  with  this  infinite,  eternal  world.  Our 
physical  world  cannot  have  any  other  world  beside  it, 
because  it  is  the  universe.  Within  the  universe  there 
are  many  worlds,  which  all  of  them  make  out  the 
cosmos,  which  has  neither  a  beginning  nor  an  end  in 
time  and  space.  The  cosmos  reaches  across  all  time 
and  space,  **in  heaven  and  on  earth,  and  everywhere." 
But  how  do  1  know  what  I  state  in  such  an  offhand 
manner?  Well,  the  knowledge  of  the  universe,  of  the 
infinite,  is  given  to  us  partly  by  birth  and  partly  by 
experience.  This  knowledge  is  inherent  in  man  just  as 
language  is,  viz.,  in  the  germ,  and  experience  gives  us 
a  proof  of  the  infinite  in  a  negative  way.  for  we  never 
learn  the  beginning  or  the  end  of  anything.  On  the 
contrary,  experience  has  shown  us  positively  that  all 
socalled  beginnings  and  ends  are  only  interconnections 
of  the  infinite,  immeasurable,  inexhaustible,  and  un- 
fathomable universe.  Compared  to  the  wealth  of  the 
cosmos  the  intellect  is  only  a  poor  fellow.  However, 
this  does  not  prevent  it  from  being  the  most  perfect 
instrument  for  clearly  and  plainly  reflecting  the  finite 
phenomena  of  the  infinite  universe. 


IV 

THE    UJTIVERSALITY    OF    NATURE 

The  positive  outcome  of  philosophy  concerns  itself 
with  specifying  the  nature  of  the  human  mind.  It 
shows  that  this  special  nature  of  mind  does  not  occupy 
an  exceptional  position,  but  belongs  with  the  whole  of 
nature  in  the  same  organization.     In  order  to  show 


THE  UNIVERSALITY  OF  NATURE 


340 


this,  philosophy  must  not  discuss  the  human  mind  as 
if  it  were  something  separate  from  nature,  but  must 
rather  deal  with  its  general  nature.  And  since  this 
general  nature  of  our  intellect  is  the  same  of  which 
every  other  thing  partakes,  it  follows  that  nature  in 
general,  or  the  universe,  or  the  cosmos,  all  of  which  is 
the  same  thing,  are  an  indispensable  object  in  the 
special  study  of  the  nature  of  the  human  mind. 

W.e  have  already  said  that  the  experienced  under- 
standing of  the  present  day  no  longer  muses  over 
nature  in  general  in  the  fantastic  and  mere  introspec- 
tive manner  as  of  old,  but  rather  seeks  to  obtain  a 
knowledge  of  it  by  special  study.  In  so  doing  we  do 
not  forget  that  the  study  of  specialties  at  the  same 
time  throws  a  light  on  the  general  relation  of  things, 
of  which  every  species  is  but  a  part. 

Since  the  human  mind  is  a  part  of  the  whole  of 
nature,  viz.,  that  part  which  has  the  desire  and  longing 
to  obtain  a  conception  of  all  the  other  parts,  and  more 
than  that,  to  understand  the  interconnection  between 
the  parts  and  the  undivided  and  infinite  whole,  it  is 
easy  to  comprehend  the  fact  that  the  philosophers 
have  occupied  themselves  so  much  with  the  most  real 
and  most  perfect  being.  Whether  this  being  was 
called  God,  or  substance,  or  idea,  or  the  absolute,  or 
nature,  or  matter,  all  of  these  terms  cannot  prevent  us 
today  from  approaching  infinite  nature  with  sober 
senses,  in  order  to  gain,  by  its  help,  a  lifelike  picture  of 
the  human  intellect,  which  is  not  a  mystical  being, 
but  a  reasonable  part  of  the  same  nature  that  lives  rea- 
sonably and  intelligibly  in  all  other  parts  of  nature. 

The  inexperienced  powers  of  distinction  which  did 
not  understand  their  function,  magnified  the  difference 


350 


THE   POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


between  the  infinite  and  its  finite  phenomena  ont  of 
all  proportion.  Xow  that  we  have  made  the  philo- 
sophical experience  that  the  general  as  well  as  the 
special  nature  of  the  human  intellect  admits  only  of 
moderate  and  bounded  distinctions,  we  arrive  at  the 
conclusion  that  the  immeasurable,  all-perfect,  and 
eternal  being  is  composed  of  finite,  commensurable, 
imperfect,  and  transient  things  in  such  a  way  that 
the  universal  being  combines  in  itself  all  perfections 
as  well  as  all  imperfections.  This  contradictory  uni- 
versal being,  this  nature  to  which  all  contradictory 
attributes  may  be  simultaneously  assigned,  in  a  cer- 
tain sense  put^'  the  old  rule  to  shame  that  you  cannot 
at  the  same  time  affirm  and  deny  the  predicate  of  any 
subject. 

Nature  comprises  all  and  is  all.  Reason  and  unrea- 
son, being  and  not  being,  all  these  contradictions  are 
contained  in  it.  Outside  of  it  there  are  no  affirmations 
and  no  contradictions.  Since  the  human  mind  eter- 
nally moves  in  affirmations  and  negations,  in  order  to 
obtain  a  clear  picture  of  things,  it  has  an  interminable 
task  in  understanding  the  interminable  object. 

Our  brain  is  supposed  to  solve  the  contradictions  of 
nature.  If  it  knows  enough  about  itself  to  realize  that 
it  is  not  an  exception  from  general  nature,  but  a  nat- 
ural part  of  the  same  whole — although  it  calls  itself 
"spirit" — then  it  also  knows  and  must  know  that  its 
clearness  can  diflfer  but  moderately  from  the  general 
confusion,  that  the  solution  of  the  problem  cannot  dif- 
fer materially  from  the  problem  itself.  The  contradic- 
tions are  solved  only  by  reasonable  diflferentiation, 
only  by  the  science  of  understanding  which  shows  that 
extravagant  differences  are  nothing  but  extravagant 


THE  rXIVERSALITY  OF  NATURE 


:J51 


speculations.  The  human  understanding  inclines  to 
exaggerations  in  its  untrained  state,  and  it  is  a  relic 
of  untrained  habits  to  differentiate  in  an  absolute  man- 
ner the  spiritual  from  the  rest  of  nature,  to  make  a 
too  extravagant  distinction  between  it  and  the  physi- 
cal body.  It  is  the  merit  of  philosophy  to  have  given 
us  a  clear  doctrine  of  the  use  of  the  intellect,  and  this 
doctrine  culminates  in  the  rule  not  to  make  exagger- 
ated, but  only  graduated  distinctions.  For  this  pur- 
pose it  is  necessary  to  realize  that  there  is  only  one 
being  and  that  all  other  socalled  beings  are  but  minor 
expressions  of  the  same  general  being,  which  we  desig- 
nate by  the  name  of  nature  or  universe. 

In  consequence  of  the  human  bent  tO  exaggeration, 
the  human  understanding  has  been  regarded  as  a 
being  of  a  different  nature  from  that  of  natural  beings 
which  exist  outside  of  the  intellect.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  every  part  of  nature  is  "another"  in- 
dividual piece  of  it,  and,  furthermore,  that  every  other 
and  different  part  is  really  nothing  different  but  a  uni- 
form piece  of  the  same  general  nature.  The  thing  is 
mutual:  The  general  nature  exists  only  in  its  many 
individual  parts,  and  these  in  their  turn  exist  only  in, 
with  and  by  the  general  cosmic  being. 

Nature  which  is  divided  by  the  human  understand- 
ing into  East  and  West,  South  and  North,  and  into  a 
hundred  thousand  other  named  parts,  is  yet  an  undi- 
vided whole  of  which  we  may  say  with  certainty  that 
it  has  as  many  innumerable  beginnings  and  ends  as  it 
is  without  beginning  and  end,  as  it  is  the  infinite  itself. 
It  is  well  known  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the 
sun.  Nothing  is  created,  nothing  disappears,  and  yet 
there  is  a  continuous  change. 


35? 


THE   POSITIVE   OUTCOME  OF   ?HILOSOPTIY 


The  brain  of  man  has  a  riglit  and  a  left  side,  a  top 
and  a  bottom,  a  front  and  a  back  part,  an  interior  and 
an  exterior.  And  the  innermost  of  the  brain  again  has 
two  sides  or  qualities,  a  physical  and  a  spiritual.  They 
are  so  little  divided  that  the  term  brain  has  two  mean- 
ings, designating  now  the  physical  brain,  now  its  men- 
tal functions.  In  speaking  here  exclusively  of  the 
mind,  we  tacitly  assume  its  inseparable  connection 
with  the  physical  body. 

The  material  brain  and  the  mental  brain  are  two 
brains  that  together  make  one.  Thus  two,  three,  four, 
or  innumerable  things  are  yet  one  thing.  The  human 
understanding  was  endowed  by  nature  with  the  faculty 
of  embracing  the  infinite  variety  of  the  universe  as 
a  unit,  as  a  single  conception.  The  unity  of  nature  is 
as  true  and  real  as  its  multiplicity.  To  say  that  many 
are  one  and  one  many  is  not  nonsense,  but  simply  a 
truism  which  becomes  clear  when  understanding  the 
positive  outcome  of  philosophy. 

A  reader  unfamiliar  with  this  our  product  of  phil- 
osophy still  follows  the  habit  of  regarding  the  physi- 
cal body  as  something  different  from  the  mind.  A  dis- 
tinction between  these  two  is  quite  justified,  but  this 
manner  of  classification  must  not  be  overdone.  The 
reader  should  remember  that  he  also  is  in  the  habit  of 
regarding  such  heterogeneous  things  as  axes,  scissors, 
and  knives  as  children  of  the  same  family  by  referring 
to  them  collectively  as  cutting  tools.  The  outcome  of 
philosophy  now  demands  that  we  apply  the  same 
method  to  the  object  of  our  special  study,  the  human 
brain.  We  must  henceforth  eschew  all  eflFervcscent 
flights  of  imagination  and  regard  the  powers  of  the 


THE  UNIVERSALITY  OF  NATURE 


human  mind  as  children  of  the  same  family  as  all  other 
physical  powers,  whose  immortal  mother  is  the 
universe. 

The  universe  is  infinite  not  alone  in  the  matter  of 
time  and  space,  but  also  in  that  of  the  variety  of  its 
products.  The  human  brains  which  it  produces  are 
likewise  internally  and  externally  of  an  infinite  differ- 
entiation, although  this  does  not  prevent  them  from 
forming  a  common  group  uniform  in  its  way. 

To  group  the  phenomena  of  nature,  the  children  of 
the  universe,  in  such  a  way  by  classes,  families,  and 
species  that  they  may  be  easily  grasped,  that  is  the 
task  of  the  science  of  understanding,  the  work  and 
constitution  of  the  perceiving  human  brain.  To  under- 
stand simply  means  to  obtain  a  general  and  at  the 
same  time  a  detailed  view  of  the  processes  and  prod- 
ucts of  the  universe  by  grouping  them  in  a  fashion 
similar  to  that  used  for  the  vegetable  kingdom  by 
botany  and  for  the  animal  kingdom  by  zoology.  It 
goes  without  argument  that  we,  the  limited  children  of 
the  unlimited  universe,  are  able  to  solve  this  problem 
only  in  a  limited  way. 

However,  this  natural  physical  limitation  of  the 
human  understanding  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  abject  misery  which  slavish  and  sentimental  meta- 
physics attribute  to  it.  The  infinite  universe  is  by  no 
means  niggardly  in  its  gifts  to  the  human  understand- 
ing. It  opens  its  whole  depths  to  our  intellectual 
understanding  and  perception.  Our  intellect  is  a  part 
of  the  inexhaustible  universe  and  therefore  partakes 
of  its  inexhaustible  nature.  That  part  of  nature  which 
is  known  by  the  name  of  intellect  is  limited  only  to 
the  extent  that  the  part  is  smaller  than  the  whole. 


354 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  UNDERSTANDING  AS  A  PART  OF  THE  HUMAN  SOUL 

The  human  intellect  or  understanding,  the  special 
object  of  all  philosophy,  is  a  part,  and  in  our  case  the 
most  prominent  part,  of  the  human  soul.  Gustav  Theo- 
dore Fechner,  a  forgotten  star  on  the  literary  firma- 
ment, posed  the  question  of  the  soul  in  his  time  and 
attempted  to  answer  it.  In  so  doing  he  clothed  the 
result  of  past  philosophies  in  a  peculiar  garb  which 
looked  fantastic  enough  at  first  sight.  He  regards  the 
outcome  of  philosophy  merely  as  an  individual  product 
and  he  is  so  full  of  veneration  for  the  ancient  terms, 
such  as  immortal  souls,  God,  Chistianity,  that  he  does 
not  care  to  dismiss  them,  no  matter  how  roughly  he 
handles  their  essence. 

Fechner  extends  the  possession  of  a  soul  to  human 
beings,  animals,  plants  stones,  planets ;  in  short,  to  the 
whole  world. 

This  is  simply  saying  that  the  human  soul  is  of  the 
same  nature  as  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  or  vice  versa, 
that  all  natural  things  have  the  same  nature  as  the 
human  soul.  Not  only  animals,  but  also  stones  and 
planets  have  something  analogous  to  our  human  soul. 

Fechner  is  not  fantastic  at  bottom,  and  yet  how 
fantastical  it  sounds  to  hear  him  say:  *T  went  out 
walking  on  a  spring  morning.  The  fields  were  green, 
the  birds  were  singing,  the  dew  sparkled,  the  smoke 
rose  toward  the  clouds.  Here  and  there  a  human  be- 
ing stirred.  A  glory  of  light  was  diflfused  over  it  all. 
It  was  only  a  small  piece  of  the  Earth.     It  was  only 


THE  UNDERSTANDING  OF  THE  SOUL 


355 


a  short  moment  of  Its  existence.  And  yet,  as  I  took  all 
this  in  with  an  ever-widening  understanding,  I  felt  not 
alone  the  beauty,  but  also  the  truth  that  it  is  an  angel 
who  is  thus  passing  through  the  sky  with  his  rich, 
fresh  and  blooming  nature,  his  living  face  upturned 
to  the  heavens.  And  I  asked  myself  how  it  is  that 
man  can  ever  become  so  stunted  that  he  sees  nothing 
but  a  dry  clod  in  the  Earth  and  looks  for  angels  above 
and  beyond  it,  never  finding  them  anywhere.  But  peo- 
ple call  this  sentimental  dreaming." 

"The  Earth  is  a  globe,  and  what  it  is  besides  may 
be  found  in  the  museums  of  natural  history."  Thus 
writes  Fechner. 

Now  there  can  be  no  objection  to  comparing  the 
beautiful  Earth  and  the  stars  around  it  with  angels, 
any  more  than  there  can  be  to  the  lover  calling  his 
sweetheart  an  angel  of  God.  The  Earth,  the  Moon, 
and  the  stars  are  according  to  Fechner's  terminology 
angelic  beings  with  souls;  mediators  between  man 
and  God.  He  knows  very  well  that  this  is  nothing  but 
a  matter  of  analogy  and  terminology,  he  is  as  atheistic 
as  the  most  atheistic,  but  his  fondness  and  reverence 
for  the  traditional  terms  lead  him  to  attribute  a  soul  to 
the  material  world  and  to  give  to  this  great  and  in- 
finite soul  a  divine  name. 

If  we  waive  this  religious  hobby  of  Fechner's,  there 
still  remains  his  peculiarity  of  using  words  and  names 
in  a  symbolical  sense.  It  is  nothing  but  the  old  poetic 
way  of  calling  a  sweetheart's  eyes  heavenly  stars  and 
the  stars  of  the  blue  heavens  lovely  eyes,  which  makes 
a  snowy  hill  of  a  woman's  breast,  a  zephyr  of  the  wind, 
a  nymph  of  a  spring  of  water,  and  an  erlking  of  an  old 
willow  tree.    This  poetic  license  has  filled  the  whole 


056 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


world  with  good  and  evil  spirits,  mermaids,  fairies, 
elfs,  and  goblins. 

This  is  not  a  bad  way  of  speaking,  so  long  as  we 
keep  in  mind,  like  a  poet,  what  we  are  doing  and  that 
we  are  consciously  using  symbolical  terms.  Fechner 
does  this  only  to  a  certain  extent.  A  little  spleen  re- 
mains in  his  brain.  It  is  this  spleen  which  I  intend  to 
deal  with  in  the  proper  light,  in  order  to  thus  demon- 
strate the  outcome  of  philosophy. 

Fechner  is  not  aware  that  his  universal  soul  reflects 
only  one  half  of  our  present  outcome  of  philosophical 
study.  The  other  half,  which  renders  an  understand- 
ing of  the  whole  possible,  consists  in  the  perception 
that  not  only  are  all  material  things  endowed  with  a 
soul,  but  that  all  souls,  including  the  human  ones,  are 
ordinary  things. 

Philosophy  has  not  only  deified  the  world  and  in- 
spired it  with  a  soul,  but  has  also  secularized  God  and 
the  souls.    This  is  the  whole  truth,  and  each  by  itself 

is  only  a  part. 

Apart  from  psychology,  which  treats  of  the  indi- 
vidual human  soul,  there  has  lately  arisen  a  "psychol- 
ogy of  nations"  which  regards  the  individual  souls  as 
parts  of  the  universal  human  soul,  as  individual  pieces 
constituting  an  aggregate  soul  which,  decidedly,  is 
more  than  a  simple  aggregation  of  numbers.  The 
soul  of  the  psychology  of  nations  has  the  same  relation 
to  the  individual  souls  that  modern  political  economy 
has  to  private  economy.  Prosperity  in  general  is  a  dif- 
ferent question  and  deals  with  different  matters  than 
the  amassing  of  wealth  for  your  individual  pocket. 
Granted  that  the  national  soul  is  essentially  different 
from  the  individual  soul,  what  would  be  the  nature  of 


THE  UNDERSTANDING  OF  THE  SOUL 


357 


the  universal  animal  soul,  including  the  souls  of  lions, 
tigers,  flies,  elephants,  mice,  etc.?  If  we  now  extend 
the  generalization  farther  and  include  in  our  psychol- 
ogy the  vegetable  and  the  mineral  kingdom,  the  vari- 
ous world  bodies,  our  solar  system,  and  finally  the 
whole  universe,  what  else  could  that  signify  than  a 
mere  rhetorical  climax? 

Mere  generalization  is  one-sided  and  leads  to  fan- 
tastical dreams.  By  this  method  one  can  transform 
anything  into  everything.  It  is  necessary  to  supple- 
ment generalization  by  specialization.  We  wish  to 
have  the  elephants  separated  from  the  fleas,  the  mice 
from  the  lice,  at  the  same  time  never  forgetting  the 
unity  of  the  special  and  the  general.  This  sin  of  omis- 
sion has  often  been  committed  by  the  zoologists  in  the 
museums  and  the  botanists  in  their  plant  collections, 
and  philosophical  investigators  of  the  soul  like  Fech- 
ner have  drifted  into  the  other  extreme  of  generaliza- 
tion without  specialization. 

The  positive  outcome  of  philosophy,  then,  in  its 
abstract  outline,  is  at  present  the  doctrine  that  the 
general  must  be  conceived  in  its  relation  to  its  special 
forms,  and  these  forms  in  their  universal  interconnec- 
tion, in  their  qualities  as  parts  of  nature  in  general. 
True,  such  an  abstract  outline  reveals  very  little.  In 
order  to  grasp  its  concrete  significance,  we  must  pene- 
trate into  its  details,  into  the  special  aspects  of  this 

doctrine. 

The  title  of  "Critique  of  Reason,"  which  Kant  gave 
to  his  special  study,  is  at  the  same  time  a  fitting  term 
for  all  philosophical  research.  Reason,  the  essential 
part  of  the  human  soul,  raises  the  critique  of  reason. 


358 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


the  science  of  philosophy,  to  the  position  of  the  most 
essential  part  of  psychology. 

But  why  do  we  call  this  the  most  essential  part? 
Is  not  the  material  world  and  its  understanding  as 
essential  as  reason,  as  intellect,  which  bends  to  the 
task  of  exploring  this  world?  Surely,  it  is,  and  I  do 
not  use  the  word  essential  in  this  sense.  I  call  the  in- 
tellect the  most  essential  part  of  the  soul,  and  the  soul 
the  most  essential  part  of  the  world,  only  in  so  far  as 
these  parts  are  the  special  condition  of  all  scientific 
study  and  because  the  investigation  of  the  general 
nature  of  scientific  study  is  my  special  object  and  pur- 
pose. Whether  I  endeavor  to  explain  the  general 
nature  of  scientific  study,  whether  I  investigate  the  in- 
tellect or  the  theory  of  understanding,  it  all  amounts 
to  the  same  thing. 

Let  us  approach  our  task  once  more  from  the  side 
of  Fechner's  universal  soul.  With  his  extravagant 
animation  of  all  things,  with  his  plant,  stone,  and  star 
souls,  he  can  help  us  to  prove  that  the  general  nature 
of  that  particle  of  soul  which  is  called  reason,  intellect, 
spirit,  or  understanding,  is  not  so  extraordinarily  dif- 
ferent from  the  general  nature  of  stones  or  trees  as  the 
old  time  idealists  and  materialists  were  wont  to  think. 

As  I  said  before,  Fechner  is  a  poet,  and  a  poet  sees 
similarities  which  a  matter-of-fact  brain  cannot  per- 
ceive. But  at  the  same  time  we  must  admit  that  the 
matter  of  fact  brain  which  cannot  see  anything  but 
mere  distinctions  is  a  very  poor  brain.  The  philoso- 
phers before  me  have  taught  me  that  a  good  brain  sees 
the  similarities  and  the  diflferences  at  the  same  time 
and  knows  how  to  discriminate  between  them.  A 
sober  poetry  and  the  combination  of  poetic  qualities 


THE  UNDERSTANDING  OF  THE  SOUL 


359 


with  a  comprehensive  and  universal  levelheadedness 
and  discrimination,  these  are  the  marks  of  a  good 
head.  Still  the  poorest  as  well  as  the  most  talented 
brains  partake  of  the  general  brain  nature,  which  con- 
sists in  the  understanding  that  like  and  unlike,  general 
and  special,  are  interrelated.  The  one  is  never  witliout 
the  other,  but  both  are  always  together. 

If  the  distinction  between  men  and  stones  is  so 
trifling  that  a  talented  brain  like  Fechner's  can  justly 
speak  of  them  both  as  being  animated,  surely  the  dif- 
ference between  the  body  and  soul  cannot  be  so  great 
that  there  is  not  the  least  similarity  and  community 
between  them.  However,  this  escaped  Fechner's 
notice.  Is  not  the  air  or  the  scent  of  flowers  an  ethe- 
real body? 

Reason  is  also  called  understanding,  and  it  is  a 
positive  achievement  of  philosophy  to  have  arrived  at 
the  knowledge  that  this  understanding  does  not  admit 
of  any  exaggerated  distinctions.  In  other  words,  all 
things  are  so  closely  related  that  a  good  poet  may 
transform  anything  into  everything.  Can  natural 
science  do  as  much?  Ah,  the  gentlemen  of  that 
science  are  also  progressing  well.  They  transform  dry 
substance  into  liquid,  and  liquid  into  gas;  they  change 
gravity  into  heat  and  heat  into  mechanical  power. 
And  they  are  doing  this  without  forgetting  to  discrim- 
inate, as  happened  to  our  Fechner. 

It  is  not  enough  to  kno^Y  that  the  body  has  a  soul 
and  the  soul  a  body,  not  enough  to  know  that  every- 
thing  has  a  soul.  It  is  also  necessary  to  discriminate 
between  the  peculiarities  and  details  of  the  human, 
animal, -plant,  and  other  souls,  taking  care  not  to  ex- 


nn 


GO 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


aggerate  their  differences  to  the  extreme  of  making 
them  senseless. 

We  do  not  intend  to  follow  this  theory  of  a  univer- 
sal soul  any  further.  Fechner  declares  himself  that  "it 
must  be  admitted  at  the  outset  that  the  whole  question 
of  a  soul  is  a  question  of  faith.'*  .  .  ,  "Analogy  is 
not  a  convincing  proof."  .  .  .  "We  can  no  more 
prove  the  existence  of  a  soul  than  we  can  disprove  it." 

However,  from  the  time  of  Cartesius  it  has  been  an 
accepted  fact  in  the  world  of  philosophers  that  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  human  soul  is  the  best  proof  of  its 
existence.  The  most  positive  science  in  the  world  is 
the  empirical  self-observation  of  the  thinking  soul. 
This  subject  is  the  most  conspicuous  object  imagin- 
able, and  it  is  the  positive  outcome  of  philosophy  to 
have  given  an  excellent  description  of  the  life  and 
actions  of  this  soul  particle  called  consciousness  or 
understanding. 

If  the  understanding  is  a  part  of  the  human  soul 
and  this  soul  an  evident  and  positive  part  of  the  uni- 
versal life,  then,  clearly,  everything  partaking  of  this 
life,  such  as  pieces  of  wood  and  stones  scattered 
around,  is  related  to  this  soul.  Individual  human 
souls,  national  souls,  animal  souls,  pieces  of  wood, 
lumps  of  stone,  world  bodies,  are  all  children  of  the 
same  common  universal  nature.  But  there  are  so 
many  children  that  they  must  be  classified  into  orders, 
classes,  families,  etc.,  in  order  to  know  them  apart. 
On  account  of  their  likeness,  the  souls  belong  together 
in  one  class  and  the  bodies  in  another,  and  each  re- 
quires more  detailed  classification.  Thus  we  finally 
arrive  at  the  class  of  human  souls  forming  a  depart- 


THE  UNDERSTANDING  OF  THE  SOUL 


361 


ment  by  themselves,  because  they  all  have  a  common 
general  character. 

The  manufacturers  know  that  the  work  of  ten 
laborers  produces  more  and  is  of  a  different  quality 
than  the  work  of  a  single  laborer  multiplied  by  ten. 
Likewise  the  general  human  soul,  or  any  national  soul, 
expresses  itself  differently  from  the  sum  of  the  various 
individual  souls  composing  it.  More  even,  the  very 
individual  soul  differs  at  various  times  and  places,  so 
that  the  individual  soul  is  as  manifold  as  any  national 

soul.  ^  , , 

"Has  the  plant  a  soul?  Has  the  earth  a  soul? 
Have  they  a  soul  analogous  to  that  of  man?  That  is 
the  question."    Thus  asks  Fechner. 

Just  as  my  soul  of  today  has  something  analogous 
to  my  soul  of  yesterday,  so  it  has  also  with  the  soul  of 
my  brother,  and  finally  with  the  souls  of  animals, 
plants,  stones,  etc.,  proving  that  everything  is  more  or 
less  analogous.  A  herd  of  sheep  is  analogous  to 
yonder  flock  of  small,  white  clouds  in  the  sky  and  a 
poet  has  the  license  to  call  those  small  clouds  little 
sheep.  In  the  same  way  Fechner  is  justified  in  pro- 
pounding his  theory  of  a  universal  soul. 

Is  it  not  necessary,  however,  to  make  a  distinction 
between  poetry  and  truth?  My  brother's  soul  and  my 
own  are  souls  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  but  the 
souls  of  stones-they  are  only  so  figuratively  speaking 
At  this  point  I  want  to  call  the  reader  s  at  ention  to 
the  fact  that  we  must  not  pass  lightly  over  the  valua- 
tion of  the  difference  between  the  true  and  the  figura- 

tive  sense  of  a  word.  .    u     « 

Words  are  names  which  do  not,  and  cannot,  have 

any  other  function  than  that  of  symbolic  illustration. 


362 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


My  soul,  yours,  or  any  other,  are  only  in  conception 
the  same  souls. 

When  I  say  that  John  Flathead  has  the  same  soul 
as  you  and  I,  my  intention  is  simply  to  indicate  that  he 
has  something  which  is  common  to  you  and  me  and  to 
all  men.  His  soul  is  made  in  the  image  of  our  souls. 
But  where  shall  we  draw  the  line  in  this  comparison  of 
images?  What  is  not  an  image  in  the  abstract,  and 
what  is  more  than  an  image  in  the  concrete? 

Truth  and  fiction  are  not  totally  different.  The 
poet  speaks  the  truth  and  true  understanding  partakes 
largely  of  the  nature  of  poetry. 

Philosophy  has  truly  perceived  the  nature  of  the 
soul,  and  especially  that  part  of  it  with  which  we  are 
dealing,  that  is,  reason  or  understanding.  This  in- 
strument has  the  function  of  furnishing  to  our  head  a 
picture  of  the  processes  of  the  world  outside  of  it,  to 
describe  everything  that  is  around  us  and  to  analyze 
the  universe,  itself  a  phenomenon,  with  all  its  phe- 
nomena as  a  process  of  infinite  variety  in  time  and 
space. 

If  this  could  be  accomplished  with  the  theory  of  a 
universal  soul,  then  Fechner  would  be  the  greatest 
philosopher  that  ever  was.  But  he  lacks  the  under- 
standing that  the  intellect  which  has  to  combine  all 
things  within  a  general  wrapper,  must  also  consider 
the  other  side  of  the  question,  that  of  specification. 
That,  of  course,  cannot  be  achieved  by  any  philoso- 
pher. It  must  be  the  work  of  all  science,  and  philos- 
ophy as  a  doctrine  of  science  must  acknowledge  that. 


THE  FACULTIES  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 


363 


VI 


CONSCIOUSNESS  IS  ENDOWED  WITH  THE  FACULTY  OF 
KNOWING  AS  WELL  AS  WITH  THE  FEELING  OF  THE 
UNIVERSALITY  OF  ALL  NATURE 

In  the  historical  course  of  philosophy,  there  has 
been  much  discussion  as  to  where  our  knowledge 
comes  from,  whether  any  of  it,  or  how  much  of  it,  is 
innate,  and  how  much  acquired  by  experience.  With- 
out  any  innate  faculties  no  knowledge  could  have  been 
gathered  with  any  amount  of  experience,  and  without 
any  experience  even  the  best  faculties  would  remam 
barren.  The  results  of  science  in  all  departments  are 
due  to  the  interaction  of  subject  and  object. 

There  could  be  no  subjective  faculty  of  vision  un- 
less there  were  something  objective  to  be  seen.  The 
possession  of  a  faculty  of  vision  carries  with  it  the 
practical  performance  of  seeing.  One  cannot  have  the 
faculty  of  vision  without  seeing  things.  Of  course,  the 
two  may  be  separated,  but  only  in  theory,  not  m  prac- 
tice, and  this  theoretical  separation  must  be  accom- 
panied by  the  recollection  that  the  separated  faculty  is 
only  a  conception  derived  from  the  practical  func  ion 
Faculty    and    function    are    combined    and    belong 

'""^Man  does  not  acquire  consciousness,  the  faculty  of 
understanding,  until  he  knows  something,  and  his 
power  grows  with  the  performance  of  this  function. 
^  The  reader  will  remember  that  we  have  mentioned 
as  an  achievement  of  philosophy  the  understanding  of 
the  fact  that  we  must  not  make  any  exaggerated  dis- 
tactions.    Hence  we  must  not  make  any  such  distinc- 


364 


THE   POSITIVE   OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


tion  between  the  innate  faculty  of  understanding  and 
the  acquired  knowledge. 

It  is  an  established  universal  rule  that  the  human 
intellect  knows  of  no  absolute  separation  of  any  two 
things,  although  it  is  free  to  separate  the  universe  into 
its  parts  for  the  purpose  of  understanding. 

Now,  if  I  claim  that  the  conception  of  the  universe 
is  innate  in  us.  the  reader  must  not  conclude  that  I  be- 
lieve in  the  old  prejudice  of  the  human  intellect  being 
like  a  receptacle  filled  with  ideas  of  the  true,  the  beau- 
tiful, the  good,  and  so  forth.    No,  the  intellect  can  ere* 
ate  its  ideas  and  concepts  only  by  self-production  and 
the  world  around  it  must  furnish  the  materials  for  this 
purpose.    But  such  a  production  presupposes  an  innate 
faculty.     Consciousness,  the  knowledge  of  being,  must 
be    present,    before    any    special    knowledge    can    be 
acquired.     Consciousness   signifies   the   knowledge   of 
being.     It  means  having  at  least  a  faint  inkling  of  the 
fact  that  being  is  The  universal  idea.     Being  is  every- 
thing; it  is  the    essence    of    everything.     Without    it 
there  cannot  be  anything,  because  it  is  the  universe, 
the  infinite. 

Consciousness  is  in  itself  the  consciousness  of  the 
mfinite.  The  innate  consciousness  of  man  is  the 
knowledge  of  infinite  existence.  When  I  know  that  I 
exist,  then  I  know  myself  as  a  part  of  existence.  That 
this  existence,  this  world,  of  which  I  am  but  a  particle 
with  all  others,  must  be  an  infinite  world,  does  indeed 
not  dawn  on  me  until  I  begin  to  analyze  the  concep- 
tion of  being  with  an  experienced  instrument  of 
thought.  The  reader,  in  undertaking  this  work  with 
such  an  instrument,  will  at  once  discover  that  the 
conception  of  the  infinite  is  innate  to  his  conscious- 


THE  FACULTIES  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 


3G5 


ness,*   and   that   no    faculty   of   conception    is   possible 
without  this  conception.     The  faculty  of  conception,  . 
understanding,  thought,  means  above  all  the  faculty  of 
grasping  the  universal  concept.    The  intellect  cannot 
have  any  conception  which  is  not  more  or  less  clearly 
or    faintly    based   on    the   concept  of   the   universe. 
Cogito,  ergo  sum.    I  think,  therefore,  I  am.    Whatever 
I  imagine  is  there,  at  least  in  imagination.    Of  course, 
the  imagined  and  the  real  thing  are  different,  yet  this 
difference  does  not  exceed  the  limits  of  the  universal 
existence.    Creatures  of  fiction  and  real  creatures  are 
not  so  radically  different  that  they  would  not  all  of 
them  fit  into  the  general  gender  of  being.    The  man- 
ner, the  form  of  being,  are  different.    Goblins  exist  in 
fiction  and  Polish  Jews  exist  in  a  tangible  form,  but 
they  both  exist.    The  general  existence  comprises  the 
body  and  the  soul,  fiction  and  truth,  goblins  and  Polish 

Tews. 

It  is  no  more  inconceivable  that  the  faculty  of  uni- 
versal understanding  should  be  innate  in  us  than  that 
circles  come  into  this  world  round,   two  mountains 
have  a  valley  between  them,  water  is  liquid  and  fire 
burns     All  things  have  a  certain  composition  in  them- 
selves, they  are  born  with  it.    Does  that  require  any 
explanation?    The  flowers  which  gradually  grow  on 
plants,  the  powers  and  wisdom  that  grow  in  men  in 
the  course  of  years,  are  no  more  easily  explained  than 
such  innate  faculties,  and  the  latter  are  no  more  won- 
derful than  those  acquired  later.    The  best  explanation 
cannot  deprive  the  wonders  of  nature  of  their  natural 
mar^^elousness.     It  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  the 


•E.  g.,  given  with  his  consciousness.— Editob. 


366 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  01-    PHILOSOPHY 


faculty  of  explanation  which  is  located  in  the  human 
brain,  is  a  destroyer  of  the  belief  in  natural  marvels. 
Philosophy  which  makes  this  faculty  of  explanation 
and  the  nature  of  its  explanations  the  object  of  its  spe- 
cial study  gives  us  a  new  and  much  better  understand- 
ing of  this  old  miracle  maker.  It  destroys  the  belief 
in  metaphysical  miracles  by  showing  that  physical 
nature  is  so  universal  that  it  absolutely  excludes  every 
other  form  of  existence  than  the  natural  one  from  this 
world  of  wonders. 

I  and  many  of  my  readers  find  in  our  brains  the 
actual  consciousness  that  this  general  nature  of  which 
the  intellect  is  a  part  is  an  infinite  nature.  I  call  this 
consciousness  innate,  although  it  is  acquired.  The 
point  that  I  wish  to  impress  on  the  reader  is  that  the 
difference  generally  made  between  innate  and  acquired 
qualities  is  not  so  extraordinary  that  the  innate  need 
not  to  be  acquired  and  the  acquired  does  not  presup- 
pose something  innate.  The  one  contradicts  the  other 
only  in  those  brains  who  do  not  understand  the  posi- 
tive outcome  of  philosophy.  Such  thinkers  do  not 
know  how  to  make  reasonable  distinctions  and  exag- 
gerate in  consequence.  They  have  not  grasped  the 
conciliation  of  all  differences  and  contradictions  in  uni- 
versal nature  by  which  all  contradictions  are  solved. 

Philosophy  has  endeavored  to  understand  the  in- 
tellect. In  demonstrating  the  positive  outcome  of  phil- 
osophy, we  must  explain  that  philosophical  under- 
standing as  well  as  any  other  does  not  rise  out  of  the 
isolated  faculty  of  understanding,  but  out  of  the  uni- 
versal nature.  The  womb  of  our  knowledge  and 
understanding  must  not  be  sought  in  the  human  brain, 
but  in  all  nature  which  is  not  only  called  the  universe, 


THE  FACULTIES  OF  CONSCIOUJXESS 


367 


but  is  actuallv  universal.  In  order  to  prove  this  latter 
assertion,  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  this  conception,  this 
consciousness  of  the  infinite  in  the  developed  intellect, 
is  in  a  manner  innate.  If  the  reader  wishes  to  object 
to  my  indiscriminately  mixing  the  innate  faculty  with 
the  acquired  understanding,  I  beg  him  to  consider  that 
I  am  endeavoring  to  prove  that  any  and  all  distinction 
made  by  the  intellect  refers  in  reality  to  the  insepar- 
able parts  of  the  one  undivided  universe.  From  this  it 
follows  that  the  admired  and  mysterious  intellect  is 
not  a  miracle,  or  at  least  no  greater  marvel  than  any 
other  part  of  the  general  marvel  which  is  identical 
with  the  infinitelv  wonderful  general  nature. 

Some  people  love  to  represent  consciousness  as 
something  supernatural,  to  draw  an  unduly  sharp  line 
of  separation  between  thinking  and  being,  thought  and 
reality.  But  philosophy,  which  occupies  itself  particu- 
larly'with  consciousness,  has  ascertained  that  such  a 
sharp  contrast  is  unwarranted,  not  in  harmony  with 
the  reality,  and  not  a  faithful  likeness  of  reality  and 

truth. 

In  order  to  understand  what  philosophy  has  accom- 
plished in  the  way  of  insight  into  the  function  of  the 
discriminating  intellect,  we  must  never  lose  sight  of 
the  fact  that  there  is  only  a  moderate  distinction  of 
degree  between  purely  imaginary  things  and  socalled 

real  things. 

Neither  the  natural  condition  of  our  faculty  ot 
thought,  nor  the  universality  of  general  nature,  permit 
of  an  exaggerated  distinction  between  the  reality  of 
creations  of  imagination  and  of  really  tangible  things 
At  the  same  time  the  exigencies  of  science  demand 
clear  illustrations  and  so  we  must  distinguish  between 


■it 


368 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


these  two  kinds  of  reality.  It  is  true  that  in  common 
usage  the  mere  thought  and  the  purely  imaginary 
things  are  set  apart  from  nature  and  reality  as  some- 
thing different  and  antagonistic.  Yet  the  rules  of  lan- 
guage heretofore  in  vogue  cannot  prevent  the  spread 
of  the  additional  knowledge  that  the  universe,  or  gen- 
eral nature,  is  so  unlimited  that  it  can  establish  a  con- 
ciliation between  these  limited  antagonisms.  The  cat 
and  the  dog,  for  instance,  are  pronounced  enemies,  but 
nevertheless  zoology  recognizes  them  as  being  legiti- 
mate domestic  companions. 

Human  consciousness  is,  in  the  first  place,  indi- 
vidual. Every  human  individual  has  its  own.  But 
the  peculiarity  of  my  consciousness,  of  yours,  and  that 
of  others,  is  that  of  being  not  alone  the  consciousness 
of  the  individual  in  question,  but  also  the  general  con- 
sciousness of  the  universe,  at  least  that  is  its  possibility 
and  mission.  Not  every  individual  is  conscious  of  the 
universality  of  general  nature,  otherwise  there  Vvould 
be  none  of  that  distracting  dualism.  Nor  would  there 
be  any  necessity  for  volumes  and  volumes  of  pliilos- 
ophy  to  teach  us  that  a  limit,  a  thing,  or  a  world  out- 
side of  the  universal,  is  a  nonsensical  idea,  an  idea 
which  is  contrary  to  sense  and  reason.  We  may  well 
say,  for  this  reason,  that  our  consciousness,  our  intel- 
lect, is  only  in  a  manner  of  speaking  our  own,  while  it 
is  in  fact  a  consciousness,  an  intellect  belonging  to 
universal  nature. 

It  can  no  more  be  denied  that  our  consciousness  is 
an  attribute  of  the  infinite  universe  than  it  can  be 
denied  that  the  sun,  the  moon  and  the  stars  are.  Since 
this  intellectual  faculty  belongs  to  the  infinite  and  is 
its  child,  we    must   not   wonder   that    this    universal 


SPIRIT  AND  NATURE 


3G9 


faculty  of  thought  is  born  with  the  capability  of  grasp- 
ing the  conception  of  a  universe  And  whoever  does 
no  longer  wonder  at  this,  must  find  it  explicable,  must 
realize  that  the  fact  of  universal  consciousness  is  thus 

explained. 

To  explain  the  mysterious  may  be  regarded  as  the 
whole  function  of  understanding,  of  intellect.  If  we 
succeed  in  divesting  of  its  mysteries  the  fact  that  the 
concept  of  an  infinite  universe  is  found  in  the  limited 
human  mind,  we  have  then  explained  this  fact  itself 
and  substantiated  our  contention  that  the  things 
around  us  are  explained  by  their  accurate  reflection  in 

our  brain. 

We  summarize  the  nature  of  consciousness,  its 
actions,  life,  and  aims  in  these  words :  It  is  the  science 
of  infinite  being:  it  seeks  to  obtain  an  accurate  con- 
ception of  this  being  and  to  explain  its  marvelousness. 
But  we  have  by  no  means  exhausted  its  life  and  amis 
in  these  words.  With  all  the  power  of  language,  we 
can  convey  but  a  vague  idea  of  the  immensity  of  the 
object  under  discussion.  Whoever  desires  to  know 
more  about  it,  must  work  for  his  own  progress  by 
observation  and  study.  This  much  may  be  safely 
said :  This  question  is  no  more  mysterious  than  any 
other  part  of  the  general  mystery. 


VII 

THE   RELATIONSHIP   OR   IDENTITY   OF   SPIRIT   AND   NATURE 

''There  is  a  natural  law  of  analogy  which  explain -. 
that  all  things  belonging  to  the  universe  are  members 
of  the  same  family,  that  they  are  related  to  one  another 


370 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


by  bonds  which  permit  of  the  greatest  variety  in  indi- 
vidual differences  and  are  not  nullified  even  by  the  dis- 
tance between  extremes."  If  we  grasp  the  meaning 
of  these  words  in  their  full  bearing,  we  recognize  the 
outcome  of  philosophy  up  to  date.  They  teach  us  how 
to  use  our  intellect  in  order  to  obtain  an  accurate  pic- 
ture of  the  universe. 

The  intellect  is  also  called  by  the  name  of  faculty 
of  discrimination.  If  in  the  science  of  the  powers  of 
this  faculty  we  place  ourselves  on  the  standpoint  of 
present-day  natural  knowledge,  we  possess  the  clear 
and  plain  insight  that  there  are  no  exaggerated  distinc- 
tions, no  unrelated  extremes,  in  the  universe.  The  in- 
finite is  related  to  the  finite.  For  all  developed  and 
perishable  things  are  the  direct  offspring  of  the  imper- 
ishable, of  the  eternal  universe.  General  nature  and 
its  special  parts  are  inseparably  interlaced.  There  is 
nothing  among  all  that  has  a  name  which  is  funda- 
mentally different  from  other  things  known  by  name. 

There  will  hardly  be  any  objection  against  these 
sentences,  until  we  proceed  to  draw  their  last  conse- 
quences. If  all  things  are  related  and  without  excep- 
tion children  of  the  universe,  it  follows  that  mind  and 
matter  must  also  be  two  yards  of  cloth  from  the  same 
piece.  Hence  the  difference  between  human  under- 
standing and  other  natural  human  faculties  must  not 
be  magnified  into  that  of  irreconcilable  extremes. 

In  order  to  become  accustomed  to  scientific  dis- 
tinctions, the  reader  should  consider  that  a  man  can 
remain  under  the  sway  of  a  belief  in  ghosts  only  so 
long  as  he  ignores  the  relationship  of  all  existing 
things.  He  believes  in  real  ghosts  whose  reality  is 
supposed  to  be  radically  different  from  his  own.    Such 


SPIRIT  AND  NATURE 


371 


a  distinction  is  exaggerated  and  illogical,  and  whoever 
believes  in  it  does  not  know  how  to  discriminate  scien- 
.tifically  and  has  not  the  full  use  of  his  critical  faculties. 

Just  as  common  parlance  opposes  art  to  nature  and 
then  forgets  that  art  is  a  part  of  nature,  similarly  as 
night  is  a  part  of  day,  so  the  language  of  the  believer 
in  ghosts  does  not  know  that  reason  and  wood,  mind 
and  matter,  in  spite  of  all  their  differences,  are  two 
parts  of  the  same  whole,  two  expressions  of  the  same 
universal  reality.  Everything  is  real  and  true,  because 
in  the  last  instance  the  universe  is  all,  is  the  only  truth 
and  reality.  So  I  call  it  a  slip  of  the  tongue  to  speak 
of  natural  nature  as  opposed  to  natural  art  or  artificial 
nature,  of  imaginary  reality  as  distinct  from  real  real- 
ity. There  ought  to  be  a  different  name  for  the  day 
of  twelve  hours  than  for  the  day  of  twenty-four  hours, 
so  that  it  might  be  better  understood  that  day  and 
night  are  not  fundamentally  different,  but  two  prongs 
of  the  same  fork. 

Just  as  the  faculty  of  thinking  is  innate  in  the  child, 
and  grows  with  its  development,  so  mankind's  faculty 
of  thought  grows  and  has  hitherto  expressed  itself  in 
a  language  which  gave  only  instinctive  conceptions  of 
the  composition  of  the  human  brain  and  of  its  func- 
tions. The  construction  of  languages  explains  in  a 
way  the  condition  of  the  human  mind  which  had  only 
inadequate  knowledge  of  itself  so  far.  Those  short- 
comings of  speech  which  I  called  slips  of  the  tongue 
were  not  understood  until  sufficient  progress  had  been 
made  in  the  explanation  of  the  process  of  thinking,  and 
now  these  same  shortcomings  offer  an  excellent  means 
of  representing  and  demonstrating  the  results  of  en- 
lightenment. 


I 


372  THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

The  mind  is  to  give  to  man  a  picture  of  the  world, 
the  language  is  the  brush  of  the  mind.  It  paints  by 
its  construction  the  universal  relationship  of  all  thmgs 
referred  to  in  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  and  it  does 
so  in  the  following  manner:  It  gives  to  each  thmg  not 
only  its  own  name,  but  also  adds  to  it  another  mdicat- 
ing  its  familv,  and  another  indicating  its  race,  another 
for  the  species,  the  genus,  and  finally  a  general  name 
which  proclaims  that  all  things  are  parts  of  th^  one 
indivisible  unit  which  is  called  world,  existence,  uni- 
verse, cosmos. 

This  diagrammatic  construction  of  language  fur- 
nishes us  with  an  illustration  of  the  graduated  rela- 
tionship of  things  and  of  the  way  in  which  the  human 
race  arrives  at  its  knowledge,  its  perceptions  or  oic- 

tures. 

We  said  that  philosophy  is  that  endeavor  which 
seeks  to  throw  light  on  the  process  of  human  thought. 
This  work  has  been  rendered  very  difficult  by  the  un- 
avoidable  misunderstanding  of  the   universal   relation- 
ship   just    mentioned.     The    transcendentalists    insist 
above  all  that  the  process  of  thinking  and  its  product, 
thought,    should    not    be    classed    among    ordinary 
physics,  not  as  a  part  of  physical  nature,  but  as  the 
creature  of  another  nature  which  carries  the  mysteri- 
ous name  of  metaphysics.     That  such  a  nature  and 
such  a  science  is  neither  possible  nor  real  is  proven  by 
the  construction  of  language  which  normally  describes 
everything  as  being  closely  related  and  corroborates 
this  by  its  abnormal  shortcomings  which  we  called 

slips  of  the  tongue. 

The  shortcomings  of  language  which  demonstrate 
the  positive  outcome  of  philosophy  consist  in  occasion- 


SPIRIT  AND  NATURE 


373 


ally  giving  insufficiently  significant  names  to  things 
belonging  to  a  group  in  which  the  distinction  between 
individuals,  species,  genera,  and  families  is  not  clearly 
defined.  It  is  not  discernible,  for  instance,  whether 
the  term  "cat"  applies  to  a  domestic  cat  or  to  a  tiger, 
because  that  term  is  used  for  a  large  class  of  animals 
of  which  the  domestic  cat  is  the  arch-type. 

But  it  may  be  that  this  illustration  is  not  well 
chosen  for  the  purpose  of  demonstrating  that  slip  of 
the  tongue  which  is  supposed  to  give  us  an  exact  ap- 
preciation of  the  positive  outcome  of  philosophy.  Let 
us  find  another  and  better  illustration  which  will  be  a 
transition  from  the  inadequate  to  the  adequate  and 
thus  throw  so  much  more  light  on  the  obscurities  of 

language. 

Another  and  better  example  of  the  inadequacies  of 
language  is  the  distinction  between  fish  and  meat.  In 
this  case,  we  entirely  lack  a  general  term  for  meat, 
one  kind  of  which  is  furnished  by  aquatic  animals  and 
the  other  by  terrestrial  animals. 

Now  let  the  reader  apply  this  shortcoming  of  lan- 
guage to  the  distinction  between  physics  and  meta- 
physics, or  between  thought  and  reality.  We  lack  a 
term  which  will  fully  indicate  the  relation  between 
these  two.  Thoughts  are  indeed  real  things.  True, 
there  is  a  diflFerence  whether  I  have  one  hundred  dol- 
lars in  imagination  or  in  reality  in  my  pocket.  Still  we 
must  not  exaggerate  this  diflference  into  something 
transcendental.  Painted  money  or  imagined  money 
are  in  a  way  also  real,  that  is  in  imagination.  In  other 
words,  language  lacks  a  term  which  will  clearlv  ex- 
press the  different  realities  within  the  compass  of  the 
unit. 


3U 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


The  understanding  of  these  peculiarities  of  lan- 
guage is  calculated  to  promote  the  insight  and  enlight- 
enment in  regard  to  that  secret  lamp  which  man  is 
carrying  in  his  brain  and  with  which  he  lights  up  the 
things  of  this  world.  The  cultivation  of  the  theory  of 
understanding,  the  critique  of  reason,  has  an  elemen- 
tary significance  for  the  elucidation  of  all  things.  This 
is  not  saying  that  philosophy,  that  special  science  with 
which  we  are  here  dealing,  is  a  universal  science  in  the 
sense  in  which  antiquity  conceived  of  it.  But  it  is 
universal  nevertheless  in  the  sense  in  which  the  alpha- 
bet and  other  primary  topics  are  universal.  Every 
one  must  use  his  brains  and  should  therefore  take 
pains  to  understand  its  processes.  Though  the  knowl- 
edge of  these  does  not  make  other  efforts  unnecessary, 
still  it  explains  many  ideas,  it  elucidates  the  nature  of 
thinking  which  every  one  is  doing  and  which  is  fre- 
quently used  in  a  more  ruthless  manner  than  a  dog 
would  treat  a  rag. 

The  inertia  which  has  prevented  the  one-sided 
idealists  on  the  one  hand  and  the  one-sided  material- 
ists on  the  other  from  coming  to  a  peaceful  under- 
standing may  be  traced  to  one  of  those  slips  of  the 
tongue.  We  lack  the  right  terms  for  designating  the 
relationship  between  spiritual  phenomena,  such  as  our 
ideas,  conceptions,  judgments  and  conclusions  and 
many  other  things  on  one  side  and  the  tangible,  pon- 
derable, commensurable  things  on  the  other.  True, 
the  reason  for  this  lack  of  terms  is  the  absence  of  un- 
derstanding, and  for  this  reason  the  dispute  is  not  one 
of  mere  words,  although  it  can  be  allayed  only  by  an 
improvement  of  our  terminology. 

Biichner,    in   his   well-known   work   on   "Force   and 


SPIRIT  AND  NATURE 


375 


Matter,"  likewise  overlooks  this  point,  the  same  as  all 
prior  materialists,  because  they  are  as  onesidedly  in- 
sistent on  their  matter  as  the  idealist  are  on  their  idea. 
Quarrel  and  strife  mean  confusion,  only  peace  will 
bring  light.  The  contrast  between  matter  and  mind 
finds  its  conciliation  in  the  positive  outcome  of  phil- 
osophy which  teaches  that  all  distinctions  must  be 
reasonable,  because  neither  our  instrument  of  thought 
nor  the  rest  of  nature  justify  any  exaggerated  distinc- 
tions. In  order  to  elucidate  the  moot  question,  noth- 
ing is  required  but  the  insight  that  ideas  which  nature 
develops  in  the  human  brain  are  materials  for  the  work 
of  our  understanding,  though  not  materials  for  the  work 
of  our  hands.  Philosophy  has  made  material  efforts  to 
grasp  the  understanding  and  its  conceptions  and  is  still 
making  them  in  the  same  way  in  which  chemistry  is  work- 
ing for  the  understanding  of  substances  and  physics  for 
the  understanding  of  forces. 

Substances,  forces,  ideas,  conceptions,  judgments, 
conclusions,  knowledge  and  perceptions,  according  to 
the  positive  outcome  of  philosophy,  must  be  regarded 
as  differences  or  varieties  of  the  same  monistic  genus. 
The  differentiation  of  things  no  more  contradicts  their 
unity  than  their  unity  contradicts  their  differentiation. 
Darwin  expanded  the  conception  of  ''species"  and  thus 
contributed  to  a  better  understanding  of  zoology. 
Philosophy  expands  the  conception  of  species  still  far 
beyond  the  Darwinian  definition  in  teaching  us  to  con- 
sider the  species  as  little  generalities  and  the  largest 
genus,  the  absolute  or  the  cosmos  as  the  all  in  one,  the 
all-embracing  species. 

In  order  to  closely  connect  the  worm  and  the  ele- 
phant, the  lowest  and  the  highest  animal,  the  vegetable 


376 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


and  the  animal  kingdom,  the  inorganic  and  the  organic, 
as  members  of  the  same  species  or  genus  in  a  reason- 
able way,  we  must  keep  account  of  the  gradations  in 
nature,  the  transitions,  the  connecting  links  and  con- 
necting ideas.  Embryology,  which  shows  that  the 
life  of  the  highest  animal  develops  through  the  stages 
of  the  animal  genus,  has  greatly  promoted  the  under- 
standing of  the  common  nature  of  all  animals. 

'The  continuity  in  the  natural  gradation  of  things 
is  perfect,  because  there  are  no  gradations  which  are 
not  represented,  because  there  are  no  differences  be- 
tween the  various  grades  which  nature  does  not  fill  by 
an  intermediary  form.  .  .  .  There  is  no  abrupt  dif- 
ference in  nature,  no  metaphysical  jump,  no  vacuum, 
no  gap  in  the  order  of  the  world,"  says  a  well-known 
author  of  our  times  whose  name  I  shall  not  mention, 
because  I  wish  to  base  my  argument  on  the  acknowl- 
edged facts  rather  than  on  names  of  authorities. 

What  Darwin  taught  us  in  relation  to  animal  life, 
viz.,  that  there  are  no  fundamental  differences  between 
species,  that  is  taught  by  philosophy  in  regard  to  the 
universe.  The  understanding  of  the  latter  is  rendered 
difficult  by  the  habit  of  making  a  transcendental  dis- 
tinction between  matter  and  mind. 


VIII 

UNDERSTANDING   IS    MATERIAL 

Whether  we  say   that   philosophy   has   the   under- 
standing for  the  object  of  its  study,  or  whether  we 


UNDERSTANDING  IS  MATERIAL 


OrvW 


say  that  philosophy  investigates  the  method  of  utihz- 
ing  subjective  understanding  in  order  to  arrive  at  gen- 
uine correct,  excellent,  objective  knowledge,  that  is 
only  a  matter  of  using  different  terms  for  the  same 
process.  It  makes  no  diflference  whether  we  designate 
the  object  of  our  special  science  as  a  thing  or  as  a 
process.  It  is  much  more  essential  to  understand  that 
the  distinction  between  the  thing  and  its  action  is  in 
this  instance  of  little  consequence. 

According  to  modern  natural  science  all  existence 
is  resolved  into  motion.  It  is  well  known  now  that 
even  rocks  do  not  stand  still,  but  are  continuously 
active,  growing  and  decaying. 

The  understanding,  the  intellect,  is  an  active  object, 
or  an  objective  action,  the  same  as  sunshine,  the  flow  of 
waters,  growing  of  trees,  disintegration  of  rocks,  or 
any  other  natural  phenomenon.    Also  the  understand- 
ing the  thinking  which  takes  place  consciously  or  un- 
consciously in  the  human  brain,  is  a  phenomenon  of  as 
indubitable  actuality  as  the  most  material  of  them.    It 
cannot  in  the  least  shake  our  contention  of  the  mate- 
rially perceptible  nature  of  intellectual  activity  that  we 
become  aware  of  this  activity  by  an  internal,  not  by  an 
external,  sense.     Whether  a  stone  is  externally  per- 
ceptible or   thought  internally,  what  difference  does 
this  slight  distinction  make  in  the  incontestable  fact 
that  both  perceptions  are  of  equal  material,  natural 
and    sense-perceptible   kind?  •  Why    should   not    the 
action  of  the  brain  belong  in  the  same  category  as  the 
action  of  the  heart?     And  though  the  movement  of 
the  heart  be  internal  and  that  of  the  tongue  of  the 
nightingale  external,  what  is  to  prevent  us    rom  con- 
sidering these  two  movements   from   the  higher  view- 


3:8 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


point  of  natural  or  material  processes?  If  the  func- 
tion of  the  heart  may  be  referred  to  as  material,  why 
not  the  function  of  the  brain?  True,  the  present 
usages  of  language  are  in  conflict  with  this  mode  of 
thought.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  every 
science  comes  into  conflict  with  usages  of  language  by 
progressive  development.  The  discovery  of  every  new 
thing  in  plant  and  animal  life  compels  the  discoverer 
to  invent  a  new  term  or  change  the  meaning  of  an  old 
one.  The  term  material  has  not  had  a  well  defined,  but 
rather  an  indefinite  meaning  so  far.  Now,  since  it  is 
necessary,  in  order  to  understand  the  function  of  the 
brain  to  remove  it  from  the  class  of  transcendental  or 
metaphysical  conceptions  and  assign  to  it  a  place 
among  the  material  things,  the  question  arises :  What 
will  be  the  most  appropriate  term  for  it?  The  mate- 
rial and  the  spiritual  are  both  two  species  of  the  same 
genus.  How  are  we  to  designate  the  species,  how  the 
genus?  For  the  sake  of  con\plete  clearness,  we  require 
three  different  names,  one  for  each  species  and  a  com- 
mon general  name.  But  since  we  are  much  less  con- 
cerned about  the  name  than  about  the  understanding 
of  these  facts  which  cannot  be  well  explained  without 
terms,  we  do  not  insist  dogmatically  on  calling  the 
understanding  material.  It  is  sufficient  to  point  out 
that  the  function  of  the  heart  and  of  the  brain  both 
belong  to  the  same  class,  no  matter  whether  this  class 
be  called  material,  real,  .physical,  or  what  not.  So 
long  as  language  has  not  established  a  definite  mean- 
ing for  these  terms,  all  of  them  serve  equally  well  and 
are  equally  deceptive. 

The   positive   outcome    of    philosophy   which    cul- 
minates in  placing  the  theory  of  understanding  in  the 


UNDERSTANDING  IS  MATERIAL 


379 


same  class  with  all  other  theories,  cannot  be  easily 
demonstrated  on  account  of  a  natural  confusion  of 
thought  which  arises  from  an  equally  natural  confu- 
sion of  language.  In  the  special  department  of  handi- 
craft as  well  as  in  that  of  scientific  brain  work  the 
terminology  is  well  systematized,  while  in  the  general 
affairs  of  life  and  science  there  is  a  confusion  which  is 
as  great  in  the  matter  of  conceptions  as  in  that  of 
applying  the  terms  by  which  those  awkward  concep- 
tions are  expressed. 

Wherever  understanding  is  clear,  there  the  lan- 
guage is  also  clear.  The  man  who  does  not  under- 
stand shoemaking  does  not  understand  its  termin- 
ology This  is  not  saying  that  the  understanding  of 
a  trade  and  the  understanding  of  its  terminology  are 
identical,  but  only  indicating  their  actual  connection. 

If  the  reader  has  had  a  glimpse  of  the  enormity  of 
the  work  of  more  than  two  thousand  years  of  philos- 
ophy in  order  to  state  what  little  we  know  today  of 
its  achievement  in  the  science  of  understanding,  he 
will  not  be  very  much  surprised  at  the  difficulties  we 
here  meet  with  in  finding  terms  for  its  demonstration 
The  function  of  the  brain  is  as  material  as  that  ot 
the  heart.    The  heart  and  its  function  are  two  things, 
but  they  are  dependent  one  upon  the  other  so  that  one 
cannot  exist  without  the  other.     The  function   may 
partlv  be  felt.     We  feel  the  heart  beating,  the  brain 
working.    The  working  of  the  heart  may  even  be  felt 
by  touch,  which  is  not  the  case  with  the  working  of  the 
brain     But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  our 
knowledge  of  the  function  of  the  heart  is  exhausted  by 
our  perception  of  it  through  the  touch.    Once  we  have 
overcome  the  habit  of  making  exaggerated  distinctions 


380 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


between  things,  and  have  learned  to  consider  the  dif- 
ferences of  things  as  weW  as  their  interconnection,  we 
can  easily  understand  that  the  science  of  the  function 
of  the  heart  is  an  infinite  science  which  is  connected 
with  all  others.  The  heart  cannot  work  without  the 
blood,  the  blood  cannot  exist  without  food,  and  this 
is  connected  with  the  air,  the  plants,  the  animals,  the 
sun,  and  the  moon. 

The  function  of  the  brain  and  its  product,  the 
understanding,  is  likewise  inseparable  from  the  uni- 
versal interdependence  of  things.  The  health  of  the 
blood  which  is  produced  by  the  action  of  the  heart  is 
no  more  and  no  less  a  material  phenomenon  than  the 
total  knowledge  of  science  which  appears  as  a  product 
of  brain  life. 

Although  we  represent  the  doctrine  of  the  material 
nature  of  understanding  as  the  positive  outcome  of 
philosophy,  this  is  not  proclaiming  the  victory  of  that 
narrow  materialism  which  has  been  spreading  itself 
particularly  since  the  eighteenth  century.  On  the  con- 
trary, this  mechanical  materialism  wholly  misunder- 
stands the  nature  of  the  problem.  It  teaches  that  the 
faculty  of  thought  is  a  function  of  the  brain,  the  brain 
is  the  object  of  study  and  its  function,  the  faculty  of 
thought,  is  fully  explained  as  a  brain  quality  or  func- 
tion. This  materialism  is  enamored  of  mechanics, 
idolizes  it,  does  not  regard  it  as  a  part  of  the  world,  but 
as  the  sole  substance  which  comprises  the  whole  uni- 
verse. Because  it  misunderstands  the  relation  of  thing 
and  function,  of  subject  and  predicate,  it  has  no  ink- 
ling of  the  fact  that  this  relation  which  it  handles  in 
such  a  matter-of-fact  way,  but  not  at  all  scientifically, 
may  be  an  object  worthy  of  study.    The  materialist  of 


THE  FOUR  PRINCIPLES  OF  LOGIC 


381 


the  old  school  is  too  horny-handed  to  consider  the 
function  or  quality  of  understanding  as  an  object 
worthy  of  a  separate  scientific  department.  We,  on 
the  other  hand,  follow  the  suggestion  of  Spinoza,  who 
required  of  the  philosophers  that  they  should  consider 
everything  in  the  light  of  eternity.  In  so  doing  we  find 
that  the  tangible  things,  such  as  the  brain,  are  qualities 
of  nature,  and  that  in  the  same  way  the  socalled  func- 
tions are  natural  things,  substantial  parts  of  the  uni- 

verse. 

Not  onlv  tangible  objects  are  "things,"  but  also  the 
rays  of  the' sun  and  the  scent  of  flowers  belong  to  this 
category,  and  perceptions  are  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
But  all' these  "things"  are  only  relative  things,  since 
they  are  qualities  of  the  one  and  absolute  which  is 
the  only  thing,  the  "thing  itself,"  well  known  to  every, 
one  by  the  name  of  the  universe,  or  cosmos. 


IX 


THE  FOUR  PRINCIPLES  OF  LOGIC 

Since  this  work  wishes  to  demonstrate  the  positive 
outcome  of  philosophy,  the  reader  may  ask  the  author 
what  are  his  proofs  that  instead  of  the  quintessence  of 
thousands  of  years  of  philosophical  work  he  is  not 
offered  the  elaboration  of  any  individual  philosopher, 
or  even  that  of  the  author  himself. 

In  replv  I  wish  to  say  that  my  work  would  be  ren- 
dered useiesslv  voluminous  by  quotations  from  the 
works  of  the  most    prominent    philosophical    writers. 


r,82 


THE   POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PTIILOSOPIIY 


without  proving  anything,  since  the  words  of  one  often 
contradict  those  of  another. 

What  is  said  by  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling,  or  Hegel, 
in  one  place  of  any  of  their  works,  is  at  least  consider- 
ably modified,  if  not  contradicted,  in  another  place  of 
the  same  work.  It  is  of  little  consequence,  how  and 
by  whose  help  I  have  arrived  at  the  positive  outcome  of 
philosophy  as  here  rendered.  Whether  it  is  the  actual 
outcome  or  not  can  be  judged  only  by  the  expert,  and 
every  opinion  is  necessarily  very  subjective. 

Under  the  circumstances  I,  as  author,  claim  that 
my  opinion  is  worth  as  much  as  any  other,  and  the 
reader  may  therefore  accept  my  assurance.  As  to  the 
further  value  of  that  which  I  offer,  it  is  a  peculiarity 
of  the  subject  under  discussion  that  every  reader  car- 
ries it  and  its  experiences  within  himself  and  may, 
without  consulting  any  other  author,  at  once  draw  his 
own  conclusions  about  my  views,  provided  he  has 
acquired  the  necessary  training  in  thought.  What  a 
traveler  tells  us  about  the  interior  of  Africa  must  either 
be  believed  to  the  letter  or  verified  by  the  accounts  of 
other  travelers.  But  what  I  say  about  logic  will,  I 
hope,  find  its  corroboration  in  the  logic  of  every  read- 
ing brain. 

The  theory  of  understanding  which  has  become  the 
special  object  of  philosophy,  is  nothing  else,  and  can- 
not be  anything  else,  but  expanded  logic.  Many  prac- 
tical rules  and  laws  of  this  department  are  known  and 
recognized  since  the  time  of  Aristotle.  But  the  ques- 
tion  whether  there  is  one  world  or  two,  a  natural  and 
unnatural,  or  supernatural  as  it  is  called  with  prefer- 
ence, that  is  the  point  which  has  given  much  trouble  to 


THE  FOUR  PRINCIPLES  OF  LOGIC 


philosophy  and  which  will  influence  the  heaUh  of  logic 
so  long  as  it  is  undecided. 

Dr.   Friedrich  Dittes,  director  of  the  institute  of 
pedagogy  in  Vienna,  has  published  a  School  of  Peda- 
gogy,   several    editions    of    which    have    appeared,    in 
which  he  gives  much  attention  to  logic.     Dittes  is  a 
prominent  pedagogue,  well  known  through  his  writ- 
ings.   He    confines   himself   in   his   School   to   teaching 
oiily  that  which  is  well  established  and  accepted  with- 
out a  doubt.    As  a  practical  man  who  addresses  him- 
self mainly  to  teachers  of  primary  grades,  he  w^ould 
not  place  himself  on  the  pinnacle  of  the  outcome  of 
philosophy,  even  if  he  could.    He  must  confine  himself 
to  that  which  is  well  established,  which  is  far  removed 
from  the  disputes  of  the  day.     But  it  may  here  serve 
as  a  whetstone  by  the  help  of  which  we  may  give  to 
the  positive  product  of  philosophy  its  latest  and  great- 
est sharpness. 

He  writes  right  in  the  beginning  of  the  first  part: 
"Our  ideas  are  as  manifold  as  the  objects  to  which  they 
refer.  Several  things  may  have  many  or  few,  or  at 
least  one  quality,  in  common.    Still  they  may  also  be 

totally  different." 

This  last  point,  viz.,  that  there  may  be  things  which 
are  '^totally"  different  from  one  another,  is  the  one 
which  is  decidedly  rejected  by  that  science  which  has 
risen  to  the  eminence  of  the  positive  acquisition  of 
philosophy.  There  can  be  no  natural  things  which  are 
'^totally"  different  from  one  another,  because  they 
must  all  of  them  have  in  common  the  quality  of  being 

natural. 

It  sounds  very  commonplace  to  say  that  there  are 
no  unnatural  things  in  nature.     Since  the  last  witch 


V 


384         THE  rosiTivi-:  outcome  of  PHii.osoniY 

• 

was  burnt,  everybody  is  sufficiently  enlightened  to 
know  that.  But  the  logical  conclusions  of  natural 
monism  have  not  yet  been  drawn.  True,  natural 
science,  properly  socalled,  is  busily  engaged  in  arriving 
at  them.  But  so  much  more  strife  is  there  in  the 
"science  of  mind,"  and  there  is  no  other  remedy  but  a 
well  founded  theory  of  understanding  which  teaches 
that  nature  is  not  alone  absolute  nature,  but  also  the 
nature  of  the  absolute.  From  this  doctrine  it  neces- 
sarily follows  that  all  things  are  not  individually  inde- 
pendent, but  related  by  sex,  dependent  children,  '^predi- 
cates"  of  the  monistic  unity  of  the  world. 

"The  arch    fountain    of   the    human     spirit,"    says 
Dittes,  "is  perception.     .      .      .     Whether  perception 
as  such  discloses  to  us  the  true  nature  of  things,  or 
whether   it   makes   us   familiar  only  with   their   phe- 
nomena, this  is  not  to  be  discussed  by  logic."     The 
practical  pedagogue  who  confines  himself  to  the  edu- 
cation of  children's  brains  or  who  wishes  at  most  to 
influence  such  teachers  as  educate  children's  brains,  is 
quite  right  in  being  satisfied  with  the  old  traditional 
Aristotlean  logic.     But  in  the  school   of  the  human 
race,  this  logic  has  not  been  suflficient.    For  this  reason 
the  philosophers  have  broached  the  question  whether 
perception,  "the  arch  fountain  of  the  human  spirit,"  is 
a  true  or  a  deceptive  fountain.     The  product  of  the 
philosophical     investigation     which     we     here     ofiFer 
amounts   to   the    declaration    that    the    logicians    are 
greatly  mistaken  about  the  "arch  fountain."     It  is  a 
cardinal  error  of  ancient  logic  to  regard  perception  as 
the  ultimate  source  from  which  the  human  mind  dips 
its  knowledge.     It  is    nature    which    is    the    ultimate 
source,  and  our  perception  is  but  the  mediator  of  un- 


THE  FOUR  PRINCIPLES  OF  LOGIC 


385 


derstanding.  And  its  product,  recognized  truth,  is  not 
truth  itself,  but  merely  a  formal  picture  of  it.  Univer- 
sal nature  is  the  arch  fountain,  is  the  eternal  and  im- 
perishable truth  itself,  and  our  perception,  like  every 
other  part  of  universal  existence,  is  only  an  attribute, 
a  particle  of  absolute  nature.  The  human  mind,  with 
whose  nature  logic  is  dealing,  is  no  more  an  independ- 
ent thing  than  any  other,  but  simply  a  phenomenon,  a 
reflex  or  predicate  of  nature. 

To  confound  true  perceptions  or  perceived  truths  with 
general  truth,  with  the  non  pins  ultra  of  all  truths,  is 
equivalent  to  regarding  a  sparrow  as  the  bird  in  general, 
or  a  period  of  civilization  as  civilization  itself,  which 
would  mean  the  closing  of  the  door  to  all  further  devel- 
opment. 

Modern  philosophy,  beginning  with  Bacon  of  Veru- 
1am  and  closing  with  Hegel,  carries  on  a  constant  strug- 
gle with  the  Aristotlean  logic.  The  product  of  this  strug- 
gle, the  outcome  of  philosophy,  does  not  deny  the  old 
rules  of  traditional  logic,  but  adds  a  new  and  decidedly 
higher  circle  of  logical  perception  to  the  former  ones. 
For  the  sake  of  better  understanding  it  may  be  well  to 
give  to  this  circle  a  special  title,  the  special  name  of 
"theory  of  understanding,"  which  is  sometimes  called 

"dialectics." 

In  order  to  demonstrate  the  essential  contents  of 
this  philosophical  product  by  an  investigation  of  the 
fundamental  laws  of  traditional  logic  and  to  explain  it 
thereby,  I  refer  once  more  to  the  teacher  of  elementary 

logic,  Dittes.  ,, 

Under  the  caption  of  "Principles  of  Judgment  he 
teaches:  ''Since  judging,  like  all  thinking,  aims  at  the 
perception  of  truth,  the  rules  have  been  sought  after 


386 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


by  which  this  purpose  might  be  accompHshcd.  As  univer- 
sally applicable  rules,  as  principles  or  laws  of  thought, 
the  following  four  have  been  named : 

(1)  The  law  of  uniformity  (identity). 

(2)  The  law  of  contradiction. 

(3)  The  law  of  the  excluded  third. 

(4)  The  law  of  adequate  cause." 

So  much  scholastic  talk  has  been  indulged  in  over 
these  four  "principles,"  that  I  can  hardly  bring  myself  to 
discuss  them  further.  But  since  my  purpose,  the  demon- 
stration of  the  positive  outcome  of  philosophy,  consists  in 
throwing  a  new  light  on  the  logic  contained  in  these  four 
so-called  principles  or  laws,  I  am  compelled  to  lay  bare 
their  inmost  kernel. 

The  first  principle,  then,  declares  that  A'  is  A,  or  to 
speak  mathematically,  every  quantity  is  equal  to  itself. 
In  plain  English :  a  thing  is  what  it  is ;  no  thing  is  what 
it  is  not.  ''Characters  which  are  excluded  by  any  con- 
ception must  not  be  attributed  to  it."  The  square  is  ex- 
cluded from  the  conception  of  a  circle,  therefore  the  pre- 
dicate "square"  must  not  be  given  to  a  circle.  For  the 
same  reason  a  straight  line  must  not  be  crooked,  and  a 
lie  must  not  be  true. 

Now  this  so-called  law  of  thought  may  be  well  enough 
for  household  use,  where  nothing  but  known  quantities 
are  under  consideration.  A  thing  is  what  it  is.  Right  is 
not  left  and  one  hundred  is  not  one  thousand.  Whoever 
is  named  Peter  or  Paul  remains  Peter  or  Paul  all  his  life. 
This,  I  say,  is  all  right  for  household  use. 

But  when  we  consider  matters  from  the  wider  point  of 
view  of  cosmic  universal  life,  then  this  famous  law  of 
thought  proves  to  be  nothing  but  an  expedient  in  logic 
which  is  not  adequate  to  the  nature  of  things,  but  merely 
a  means  of  mutual  understanding  for  us  human  beings. 


THE  FOUR  PRTXCTPI.ES  OF  LOGIC 


007 


Hence  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  is  not  the  right,  because 
we  have  agreed  that  in  naming  the  banks  of  a  river  we 
will  turn  our  backs  to  the  source  and  our  faces  to  the 
mouth  of  the  river  and  then  designate  the  banks  as  right 
and  left.     Such  a  way  of  distinguishing,  thinking,  and 
judging  is  good  and  practical,  so  long  as  this  narrow 
standpoint  is   accompanied  by   the  consciousness  of   its 
narrowness.    Hitherto  this  has  not  been  the  case.     This 
determined    logic    has    overlooked    that    the    perception 
which  is  produced  by  its  rules  is  not  trutlL  not  the  real 
world,  but  only  gives  an  ideal,  more  or  less  accurate,  re- 
flection of  it.    Peter  and  Paul,  who  according  to  the  law 
of  identity  are  the  same  all  their  lives,  are  in  fact  dif- 
ferent fellows  every  minute  and  every  day  of  their  lives, 
and  all  things  of  this  world  are,  like  those  two,  not  con- 
stant, but  very  variable  quantities.     The   mathematical- 
points,  the  straight  lines,  the  round  circles,  are  ideals. 
In  reality  every  point  has  a  certain  dimension,  every 
straight  line,  when  seen  through  a  magnifying  glass,  is 
full  of  many  crooked  turns,  and  even  the  roundest  circle, 
according  to  the  mathematicians,  consists  of  an  infinite 
number  of  straight  lines. 

The  traditional  logic,  then,  declares  with  its  law  of 
identity,  or  in  the  words  of  Dittes  "law  of  uniformity," 
that  Peter  and  Paul  are  the  same  fellows  from  beginning 
to  end,  or  that  the  western  mountains  remain  the  same 
western  mountains  so  long  as  they  exist.  The  product  of 
modern  philosophy,  on  the  other  hand,  declares  that  the 
identity  of  people,  woods,  and  rocks  is  inseparably  linked 
to  their  opposite,  their  incessant  transformation.  The  old 
school  logic  treats  things,  the  objects  of  perception,  like 
stereotyped  moulds,  while  the  philosophically  expanded 
logic  considers  such  treatment  adequate  for  household 


388 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


use  onlv.  The  logical  liousehold  use  of  stereotyped  con- 
ception's extends,  and  should  extend,  to  all  of  science.  The 
consideration  of  things  as  remaining  "the  same  is  indis- 
pensahle,  and  vet  it  is  very  salubrious  to  know  and  re- 
member that  the  things  are  not  only  the  same  permanent 
and  sterccnvped,  but  at  the  same  time  variable  and  in 
flow  That  is  a  contradiction,  but  not  a  senseless  one. 
This  contradiction  has  confused  the  minds  and  given 
much  trouble  to  the  philosophers.  The  solution  of  this 
problem,  the  elucidation  of  this  simple  fact,  is  the  positive 
product  of  philosophy. 

I  have  just  declared  that  logic  so  far  did  not  know 
that  the  perception  produced  by  its  principles  does  not 
offer  us  truth  itself,  but  only  a  more  or  less  accurate  pic- 
ture of  it.    I  have  furthermore  contended  that  the  posi- 
tive outcome  of  philosophy  has  materially  added  to  the 
clearness  of   the  portrait  of  the   human  mind.     Logic 
claims  to  be  "the  doctrine  of  the   forms  and  laws  of 
thought."    Dialectics,  the  product  of  philosophy,  aims  to 
be   the    same,    and    its   first   paragraph   declares:      Not 
thought  produces  truth,  but  being,  of  which  thought  is 
only  that  part  which  is  engaged  in  securing  a  picture  of 
truth.    The  fact  resulting  from  this  statement  may  easily 
confuse  the  reader,  viz.,  that  the  philosophy  which  has 
been  bequeathed  to  us  by  logical  dialectics,  or  dialectic 
logic,    must    explain    not    alone    thought,    but    also   the 
original  of  which  thought  is  a  reflex. 

While,  therefore,  traditional  logic  teaches  in  its  first 
law  that  all  things  are  equal  to  themselves,  the  new  dialec- 
tics teaches  not  only  that  things  are  equal  to  themselves 
and  identical  from  start  to  finish,  but  also  that  these 
same  things  have  the  contradictory  quality  of  being  the 
same  and  vet  widely  variable.    If  it  is  a  law  of  thought 


THE  FOUR  PRINCIPLES  OF  LOGIC 


389 


that  we  gain  as  accurate  as  possible  a  conception  of  things 
by  the  help  of  thought,  it  is  at  the  same  time  a  law  of 
thought  that  all  things,  processes,  and  proceedings  are 
not  tilings  but  resemble  the  color  of  that  silk  which,  al- 
though equal  to  itself  and  identical  throughout,  still  plays 
from  one  color  into  another.     The  things  of  which  the 
thinking  thing  or  human  intellect  is  one  are  so  far  from 
being  one  and  the  same  from  beginning  to  end  that  they 
are  in  truth  and  fact  without  beginning  and  end.     And 
as  phenomena  of  nature,  as  parts  of  infinite  nature,  they 
only  seem  to  have  a  beginning  and  end,  while  they  are 
in  reality  but  natural  transformations  arising  temporarily 
from  the  infinite  and  returning  into  it  after  a  while. 

Natural  truth  or  true  nature,  without  beginning  and 
end,  is  so  contradictory  that  it  only  expresses  itself  by 
shifting  phenomena   which   are  nevertheless  quite  true. 
To  old  line  logic  this  contradiction  appears  senseless.    It 
insists  on  its  first,  second,  and  third  law,  on  its  identity, 
its  law  of  contradiction  and  excluded  third,  which  must 
be  either  straight  or  crooked,  cold  or  warm,  and  excludes 
all  intermediary  conceptions.     And  in  a  way  it  is  right. 
For  everv-day  use  it  is  all  right  to  deal  in  this  summary 
fashion  with  thoughts  and  words.    But  it  is  at  the  same 
time  judicious   to  learn   from  the   positive   outcome  of 
philosophy  that  in  reality  and  truth  things  do  not  come 
to  pass  so  ideally.     The  logical  laws  think  quite  cor- 
rectly of  thoughts  and  their  forms  and  applications.    But 
they  do  not  exhaust  thinking  and  its  thoughts.     They 
overlook  the  consciousness  of  the  inexhaustibleness  of  all 
natural  creations,  of  which  the  object  of  logic,  human 
understanding,  is  a  part.    This  object  did  not  fall  from 
heaven,  but  is  a  finite  part  of  the  infinite  which  actually 
has  the  contradictory  quality  of  possessing  in  and  with 


390 


THE  POSITIVE   OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


its  logical  nature  that  universal  nature  which  is  superior 

to  all  logic. 

From  this  critique  of  the  three  first  "fundamental 
laws  of  logic"  it  is  apparent  that  the  human  understand- 
ing is  not  only  everywhere  identical,  but  also  different 
in^each  individual  and  has  a  historical  development.    We 
are,  of  course,  logically  entitled  to  consider  this  faculty 
like  all  others  by  itself  and  give  it  a  birthday.    Wherever 
man  begins,  there  understanding,  the  faculty  of  thought, 
begins.     But  we  are  philosophically  and  dialectically  no 
less  entitled,  and  it  is  even  our  duty,  to  know  that  the 
faculty  of  understanding,  the  same  as  its  human  bearer, 
has  no  beginning,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  ascribe  a 
beginning  to  them.    When  we  trace  the  historical  devel- 
opment of  these  two,  of  man  and  understanding,  back- 
ward to  their  origin,  we  arrive  at  a  transition  to  the 
animal  and  see  their  special  nature  merging  into  general 
nature.    The  same  is  found  in  tracing  the  development  of 
the  individual  mind.     Where  does  consciousness  begin 
in  the  child?    Before,  at,  or  after  birth?    Consciousness 
arises  from  its  opposite,  unconsciousness,  and  returns  to 
it.    In  consequence  we  regard  the  unconscious  as  the  sub- 
stance and  the  conscious  as  its  predicate  or  attribute.  And 
the  fixed  conceptions  which  we  make  for  ourselves  of  the 
units  or  phenomena  of  the  natural  substance  are  recog- 
nized by  us  as  necessary  means  in  explaining  nature,  but 
at  the  same  time  it  is  necessary  to  learn  from  dialectics 
that  all  fixed  conceptions  are  floating  in  a  liquid  element. 
The  infinite  substance  of  nature  is  a  very  mobile  element, 
in  which  all  fixed  things  appear  and  sink,  thus  being  tem- 
porarily fixed  and  yet  not  fixed. 

Now  let  us  briefly  review  the  fourth  fundamental  law 
of  logic,  according  to  which  everything  must  have  an  ade- 


THE  FOUR  PRINCIPLES  OF  LOGIC 


391 


quate  cause.  This  law  is  likewise  very  well  worthy  of 
attention,  yet  it  is  very  inadequate,  because  the  question 
what  should  be  our  conception  of  the  world  and  what 
is  the  constitution  of  the  most  highly  developed  thinking 
faculty  of  the  world  requires  the  answer:  the  world,  in 
which  everything  has  its  adequate  cause,  is  nevertheless, 
including  consciousness  and  the  faculty  of  thought, 
without  beginning,  end,  and  cause,  that  is,  a  thing  justi- 
fied in  itself  and  by  itself.  The  law  of  the  adequate  cause 
applies  only  to  pictures  made  by  the  human  mind.  In  our 
logical  pictures  of  the  world  everything  must  have  its 
adequate  cause.  But  the  original,  the  universal  cosmos, 
has  no  cause,  it  is  its  own  cause  and  effect.  To  understand 
that  all  causes  rest  on  the  causeless  is  an  important  dia- 
lectic knowledge  which  first  throws  the  requisite  light 
on  the  law  of  the  necessity  of  an  adequate  cause. 

Formally  everything  must  have  its  cause.  But  really 
everything  has  not  only  one  cause,  but  innumerable 
causes.  Not  alone  father  and  mother  are  the  cause  of 
my  existence,  but  also  the  grand  parents  and  great  grand 
parents,  together  with  the  air  they  breathed,  the  food  they 
ate,  the  earth  on  wdiich  they  walked,  the  sun  which 
warmed  the  earth,  etc.  Not  a  thing,  not  a  process,  not 
a  change  is  the  adequate  cause  of  another,  but  everything 
is  rather  caused  by  the  universe  which  is  absolute. 

When  philosophy  began  its  career  with  the  intention 
of  understanding  the  world,  it  soon  discovered  that  this 
purpose  could  be  accomplished  only  by  special  study. 
When  it  chose  understanding,  or  the  faculty  of  thought, 
as  the  special  object  of  its  study,  it  separated  its  specific 
object  too  far  from  the  general  existence.  Its  logic,  in 
opposing  thought  to  the  rest  of  existence,  forgot  the  in- 
terconnection of  the  oppositcs,  forgot  that  thought  is  a 


392 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


form,  a  species,  an  individuality  which  belongs  to  the 
genus  of  existence,  the  same  as  fish  to  the  genus  of  meat, 
night  to  the  genus  of  day,  art  to  nature,  word  to  action, 
and  death  to  life.    It  does  not  attempt  to  explore  the  es- 
sence of  thought  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the  purpose  of 
discovering  the  rules  of  exploring  and  thinking  correctly. 
It  could  not  very  well  arrive  at  those  coveted  rules,  so 
long  as  it  idealized  truth  transcendentally  and  elevated 
it  far  above  the  phenomena.    All  phenomena  of  nature 
are  true  parts  of  truth.    Even  error  and  lies  are  not  op- 
posed to  truth  in  that  exaggerated  sense  in  which  the  old 
style  logic  represents  them,  which  teaches  that  two  con- 
tradictory predicates  must  not  be  simultaneously  applied 
to  the  same  subject,  that  any  one  subject  is  either  true  or 
false,  and  that  any  third  alternative  is  out  of  the  question. 
Such  statements  are  due  to  an  entire  misconception  of 
truth.    Truth  is  the  absolute,  universal  sum  of  all  exist- 
ing things,  of  all  phenomena  of  the  past,  present,  and 
future.    Truth  is  the  real  universe  from  which  errors  and 
lies  are  not  excluded.    In  so  far  as  stray  thoughts,  giants 
and  brownies,  lies  and  errors  are  really  existing,  though 
only  in  the  imagination  of  men,  to  that  extent  they  are 
true.     They  belong  to  the  sum  of  all  phenomena,  but 
they   are   not   the    whole   truth,   not  the    infinite    sum. 
And  even  the  most  positive  knowledge  is  nothing  but  an 
excellent  picture  of  a  certain  part.    The  pictures  in  our 
minds  have  this  in  common  with  their  originals  that  they 
are  true.    All  errors  and  lies  are  true  errors  and  true  lies, 
hence  are  not  so  far  removed  from  truth  that  one  should 
belong  to  heaven  and  the  other  to  eternal  damnation.    Let 
us  remain  human. 

Since  old  line  logic  with  its  four  principles  was  too 
narrowminded,  its  development  had  to  produce  that  dia- 


UNDERSTANDING  ON  THE  RELIGIOUS  FIELD 


393 


lectics  which  is  the  positive  outcome  of  philosophy.  This 
science  of  thought  so  expanded  regards  the  universe  as 
the  truly  universal  or  infinite,  in  which  all  contradictions 
slumber  as  in  the  womb  of  conciliation.  Whether  the 
new  logic  shall  have  the  same  name  as  the  old,  or  assume 
the  separate  title  of  theory  of  understanding  or  dialectics, 
is  simply  a  question  of  terms  which  must  be  decided  by 
considerations  of  expediency. 


X 


THE    FUNCTION    OF    UNDERSTANDING    ON    THE    RELIGIOUS 

FIELD 

W'e  took  our  departure  from  the  fact  that  philosophy 
is  searching  for  ''understanding."  The  first  and  principal 
acquisition  of  philosophy  was  the  perception  that  its  object 
is  not  to  be  found  in  a  transcendental  generality.  Who- 
ever wishes  to  obtain  understanding,  must  confine  himself 
to  something  special,  without,  however,  through  this  limi- 
tation losing  sight  of  all  measure  and  aim  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  he  forgets  the  infinite  generality.  ^ 

A  modern  psyschologist  who  occupies  himself  with 
"Thoughts  on  Enlightenment,"  which  topic  is  evidently 
related  to  ours,  says:  "Real  and  genuine  enlightennient 
can  proceed  only  from  religious  motives."  Expressed  m 
our  language,  this  would  mean:  Every  genuine  under- 
standing, every  true  conception  or  knowledge,  must  be 
based  on  tie  clear  consciousness  that  the  infinite  universe 
is  the  arch  fundament  of  all  things. 

Understanding  and  true  enlightenment  are  idemical. 


394 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


"It  is  true,"  say  the  'Thoughts  on  EnHghtenment,"  "that 
all  enlightenment  takes  the  form  of  struggles  on  account 
of  the  nature  of  him  who  is  to  be  enlightened  and  of  the 
object  about  which  he  is  to  be  informed.  But  it  is  a  strug- 
gle for  religion,  not  against  it."  The  author,  Professor 
Lazarus,  says  in  his  preface  that  he  does  not  wish  the 
reader  to  base  his  opinion  on  any  single  detached  sen- 
tence. "Every  single  sentence,"  he  says,  "may  be  tested 
as  to  its  value,  but  the  whole  of  my  views  on  religion  and 
enlightenment  cannot  be  recognized  from  any  single  one 
of  them." 

As  this  wish  is  entirely  justified  and  as  our  position  is 
somewhat  supported  by  his  psychological  treatment  of 
enlightenment,  we  shall  comply  with  his  wish  and  seek  to 
grasp  the  meaning  of  his  statements  on  the  religious 
nature  of  enlightenment  in  their  entirety,  not  as  isolated 
sentences. 

We  even  go  a  step  farther  than  Professor  Lazarus,  by 
extending  to  understanding  what  he  says  about  enlighten- 
ment, viz.,  that  genuine  knowledge  and  enlightenment 
must,  so  to  say,  take  their  departure  from  religious  mo- 
tives. But  we  differ  a  little  as  to  what  motives  are  relig- 
ious. Lazarus  refers,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  to  ideas  and 
the  ideal,  while  we,  thanks  to  the  positive  outcome  of 
philosophy,  understand  the  terms  religion  and  religious 
to  refer  to  the  universal  interdependence  of  things. 

Obviously  the  dividing  line  between  heat  and  cold  is 
drawn  by  the  human  mind.  The  point  selected  for  this 
purpose  is  the  freezing  point  of  water.  One  might  just  as 
well  have  selected  any  other  point.  Evidently  the  divid- 
ing line  between  that  which  is  religious  and  that  which  is 
irreligious  is  as  indeterminate  as  that  between  hot  and 
cold.    Neither  any  university  nor  any  usage  of  language 


UNDERSTANDING  ON  THE  RELIGIOUS  FIELD  395 

can  decide  that,  nor  is  the  pope  a  scientific  authority  in  the 

matter. 

It  is  mainly  due  to  the  socalled  historical  school  that 
a  thing  is  considered  not  alone  by  its  present  condition, 
but  by  its  origin  and  decline.    What,  then,  is  religion  and 
religious  ?    The  fetish  cult,  the  animal  cult,  the  cult  of  the 
ideal  and  spiritual  creator,  or  the  cult  of  the  real  human 
mind?    Where  are  we  to  begin  and  where  to  end ?    If  the 
ancient  Germans  regarded  the  great  oak  as  sacred  and 
religious,  why  should  not  art  and  science  become  religious 
among  the  modern  Germans  ?    In  this  sense,  Lazarus  is 
correct.      The    "enlightenment"    which    was    headed    in 
France  by  Voltaire  and  the  encyclopedists,  in  Germany  by 
Lessing  and  Kant,  the  "enlightenment"  which  came  as  a 
struggle  for  reason  and  against  religion,  was  then  in  fact 
a  struggle  for  religion,  not  against  it.     By  this  means 
one  may  make  everything  out  of  anything.    But  this  has 
to  be  learned  first  in  order  to  recognize  how  our  mmd 
ought  to  be  adjusted,  so  that  it  may  perceive  that  not  only 
everything  is  everything,  but  that  each  thing  also  has  its 

own  place.  ,        .   . 

We  wish  to  become  clear  in  our  minds  how  it  is  possi- 
ble and  reconcilable  with  sound  conception,  that  such  an 
anti-religious  struggle  as  that  carried  on  during  that 
period  of  "enlightenment"  can  nevertheless  be  a  struggle 
for  and  in  the  interest  of  religion.  We  wish  to  find  out 
how  one  may  abolish  religion  and  at  the  same  time  main- 
tain it. 

This  is  easilv  understood,  if  we  remember  the  repeat- 
edly quoted  dialectic  rule  according  to  which  our  under- 
standing must  never  exaggerate  the  distinctions  between 
two  things.  We  must  not  too  widely  separate  the  relig- 
ion, from  the  secular  field.    Of  course,  the  religious  field 


396 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


is  in  heaven,  while  the  secular  is  naturally  in  the  profane 
universe.  Having  become  aware  that  even  religious  im- 
agination, together  with  its  heaven  and  spirit  creator,  are 
profane  conceptions  in  spite  of  their  alleged  transcenden- 
talism, we  find  religion  in  the  secular  field,  and  thus  this 
field  has  in  a  way  become  religious.  The  religious  and 
the  profane  infinite  have  something  in  common,  at  least 
this  that  the  indefinite  religious  name  may  also  be  ap- 
plied to  the  secular  or  profane  infinity. 

''All  culture,  every  condition  of  humanity  or  of  a 
nation,  has  its  roots  as  well  as  its  bounds  in  history,"  says 
our  Professor  of  psychology.  Should  not  religion,  which 
according  to  the  words  of  a  German  emperor  "must  be 
preserved  for  the  people,"  also  have  its  bounds  in  history? 
Or  does  it  belong  to  the  infinite  and  must  it  exist  forever? 
In  order  to  free  history  of  its  bounds,  it  is  necessary  to 
avail  ourselves  of  the  positive  outcome  of  philosophy  and 
to  demonstrate  that  nothing  is  infinite  but  the  infinite 
itself,  which  has  the  double  nature  of  being  infinite  and 
inseparable  from  the  finite  phenomena  of  nature.  The 
whole  of  nature  is  eternal,  but  none  of  its  individual  phe- 
nomena is,  although  even  the  imperishable  whole  is  com- 
posed of  perishable  parts. 

The  relation  of  the  constant  whole  of  nature  to  its 
variable  parts,  the  relation  of  the  general  to  the  specialties 
composing  it,  includes,  if  we  fully  grasp  it,  a  perfect  con- 
ception of  the  human  mind  as  well  as  of  the  understand- 
ing and  enlightenment  which  it  acquires.  This  mind  can- 
not enlighten  itself  as  to  its  special  nature  without  observ- 
ing how  it  came  to  enlighten  itself  as  to  the  nature  of  other 
specialties.  We  then  find  that  it  has  likewise  enlightened 
itself  on  religious  phenomena  by  recognizing  them  as  a 
part,  as  a  variation,  of  the  general  phenomenon  of  the  con- 


UNDEllSTANDTNG  ON  THE  RELIGIOUS  FIELD 


39T 


slant,  eternal,  natural  universe.     Hence  secular  nature, 
which  is  at  the  same  time  eternal  and  temporal,  is  the 
mother  of  religious  nature.    Of  course,  the  child  partakes 
of  the  nature  of  the  mother.    Religion,  historically  con- 
sidered, arises  from  nature,  but  the  determination  of  the 
date  of  the  beginning  of  this  specialty  is  left  as  much  to 
the  choice  of  man  as  that  of  the  point  where  the  cold  and 
the  warm  meet.    The  general  movement  of  nature,  from 
which  arise  its  specialties,  proceeds  in  infinite  trnie.    Its 
transformations   are   so   gradual   that   every  determmed 
point  constitutes  an  arbitrary  act  which  is  at  the  same  time 
arbitrary  and  necessary ;  necessary  for  the  human  bemg 
who  wishes  to  gain  a  conception  of  it.    A  perfect  concep- 
tion of  religion,  therefore,  goes  right  to  the  center  of  the 
question,  to  the  point  where  the  religious  specialty  reaches 
a  characteristic  stage,  to    its    freezing   point,  so  to  say. 
From  this  standpoint,  heat  and  cold  may  be  sharply  de- 
fined ;  likewise  religion.    If  we  say,  for  instance,  that  re- 
ligion is  the  conception  of  a  supernatural  spirit  who  rules 
nature    and  the  reader  thinks  this  definition  somewhat 
appropriate,  the  simple  demonstration  of  the  achievements 
of  philosophy  in  the  field  of  understanding  or  dialectics 
proves  that  this  religious  conception  is  untenable  in  this 
world  of  the  human  mind  which  knows  how  to  obtain  a 
logical  picture  of  its  experiences. 

To  desire  to  preserve  religion  for  the  people  as  a 
sharply  defined  and  finite  thing  is  contrary  to  all  logic  and 
equivalent  to  swimming  against  the  tide.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  equally  illogical  to  identify  religion  after  the 
manner  of  Lazarus  with  the  conception  of  natural  infinity 
or  infinite  nature,  because  that  promotes  mental  haziness. 
The  laws  of  thought  obtained  by  philosophical  research 
give    us    considerable   enlightenment   about    the    infinite 


1 1 
• « 

.  k 


398 


THE   POSITIVE   OUTCOME   OF    I'HILOSOPIIY 


material  process,  the  nature  of  which  is  sublime  enough  to 
be  worthy  of  religious  devotion,  and  yet  special  and  mat- 
ter-of-fact enough  to  wash  the  dim  eyes  with  natural 
clearness. 

We  have  already  seen  in  preceding  chapters  that  we 
must  first  define  our  standpoint  before  we  can  decide 
which  is  the  right  or  left  bank  of  a  river.  So  it  is  also  in 
the  matter  of  abolishing  and  maintaining  religion  for  the 
people.  It  can  be  done  the  moment  we  extend  the  dis- 
cussion to  the  realm  of  infinity.  The  conception  of  in- 
finity, called  substance  by  Spinoza,  monad  by  Leibniz, 
thing  itself  by  Kant,  the  absolute  by  Hegel,  is  indeed 
necessary  in  order  to  explain  anything,  not  only  by  the 
fourth  root,  but  by  the  infinite  root  of  the  adequate  rea- 
son. To  that  extent  we  are  agreed  that  enlightenment,  or 
understanding  as  we  say,  is  not  alone  a  struggle  against 
religion,  but  also  for  it.  In  the  theory  of  understanding 
acquired  by  philosophy,  there  is  contained  a  decisive  re- 
peal of  religion.  Nevertheless  we  say  with  Lazarus :  "The 
power  of  enlightenment  and  its  aim  are  not  expressed  in 
negation,  not  in  that  which  is  not  believed,  but  in  that 
which  is  believed,  venerated,  and  preserved."  And  yet 
every  enlightening  perception,  every  understanding  result- 
ing from  enlightenment,  is  a  negation.  In  seeking  enlight- 
enment, for  instance,  on  understanding,  it  is  necessary, 
in  order  to  prove  that  it  is  a  natural  phenomenon,  to  deny 
the  religious  element  in  so  far  as  it  assumes  the  existence 
of  a  divine  chief  spirit  whose  secondary  copy  the  human 
spirit  is  supposed  to  be.  Or,  in  order  to  gain  enlighten- 
ment on  the  nature  of  the  universe,  in  order  to  realize  that 
it  is  a  truly  universal  universe,  we  are  compelled  to  deny 
the  existence  of  every  "higher"  world,  including  the  re- 
ligious.    But  if  we  desire  to  become  enlightened  as  to 


UNDERSTAXDIXC  ON  THE  RELIGIOUS  FIELD 


noo 


how  it  is  that  religion  may  not  alone  be  denied,  but  also 
preserved,  we  must  transfer  its  origin  from  an  illogical 
other  world  into  the  natural  and  logical  universe.  Thus 
religion  becomes  natural  and  nature  religious. 

If  worship  is  confined  to  the  idolization  of  the  sun  or 
the  cat,  every  one  realizes  the  temporality  of  the  matter. 
And  if  we  restrict  worship  to  the  adoration  of  the  great 
omnipotent  spirit,  every  one  realizes  the  temporality  of 
this  adoration  who  has  acquired  an  accurate  conception  of 
the  small  human  spirit  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  extend 
religious  worship  to  everything  which  has  ever  been  ven- 
erated, or  will  ever  be  venerated,  by  human  beings,  in 
other  words,  if  we  extend  the  conception  of  religion  to 
the  entire  universe,  then  it  assumes  a  very  far-reaching 
significance. 

This  is  the  essence  of  enlightenment  on  religion :  That 
we  may  at  will  expand  or  contract  our  conceptions,  that 
all  things  are  alike  to  the  extent  of  representing  only  one 
nature,  that  all  fantastical  ideas,  all  good  and  evil  spirits 
and  ghosts,  no  matter  how  "supernaturally"  conceived,  are 
all  natural. 

The  essential  thing  in  the  enlightenment  acquired  by 
philosophical  study  is  the  appreciation  of  the  fact  that 
understanding,  enlightenment,  science,  etc.,  are  not  culti- 
vated for  their  own  sake,  but  must  serve  the  purpose  of 
human  development,  the  material  interests  of  which  de- 
mand a  correct  mental  picture  of  the  natural  processes. 

We  have  chosen  the  religious  idea  for  discussion  in 
this  chapter  so  that  it  may  serve  as  a  means  of  illustrating 
the  nature  of  thought  in  general.  We  regard  it  as  the 
merit  of  philosophy  to  have  unveiled  this  nature. 

Professor  Lazarus  is  quite  a  pleasing  companion.  He 
is  a  fine  thinker,  saturated  with  the  teachings  of  the  phil- 


400 


niE  POSniVK  OUTCOMR  Ul-    I'lIILOSOniY 


osophers,  not  over  fond  of  any  particular  school,  and  only 
about  two  hands'  breadth  removed  from  our  position.  Bui 
this  is  just  enough  to  demonstrate  by  his  shortcomings  the 
advantages  of  our  position  which  proves  that  the  part  of 
the  human  soul  performing  the  work  of  thinking  is  under- 
stood by  us  at  least  two  hands'  breadth  better  than  by  this 
prominent  psychologist. 

**The  function  of  enlightenment  is  to  recognize  that  no 
phenomenon  can  be  an  effect  which  has  not  another  phe- 
nomenon as  its  cause,  and  to  search  for  the  sole  cause  of 
every  effect,  noting  all  its  parts  and  their  consecutive 
divisions." 

These  words  describe  the  mental  work  performed  by 
the  human  brain  fairly  well,  but  still  they  require  a  little 
addition,  to  the  effect  that  the  mental  work  is  no  exception 
from  any  other  phenomena,  all  of  which  have  not  alone 
their  special,  but  also  one  general  cause.  The  cause  of  all 
causes,  of  which  religion  is  making  an  idol,  must  be  pro- 
faned, so  to  speak,  by  the  cult  of  science,  so  that  the  above 
definition  of  Lazarus  regarding  enlightenment  would 
read  as  follows :  The  sole  and  true  cause  of  all  effects  is 
the  universe,  or  the  general  interdependence  of  all  things. 
But  this  is  not  by  far  the  full  scope  of  enlightenment.  It 
is  further  necessary,  as  Lazarus  well  says,  to  note  "all  its 
parts  and  their  consecutive  divisions."  We  further  add : 
The  universal  cause  must  be  understood  not  alone  in  its 
consecutive  parts,  but  also  in  its  co-ordinate  parts.  It  is 
only  then  that  understanding,  enlightenment,  become  per- 
fect. We  then  find  that  after  all  the  relation  between 
cause  and  effect,  or  the  relation  between  the  universal 
truth  and  its  natural  phenomena,  is  not  a  very  trenchant 
one,  but  a  relative  one. 

"Enlightenment  advances  in  various,  in  all,  fields  of 


DISTINCTIOX   BETWEEN   CAUSE  AND  EFFECT 


401 


mental  life.  Religious  enlightenment  has  long  been  recog- 
nized as  the  most  essential,  justly  so,  and  for  many  rea- 
sons, the  chief  of  them  being  that  religious  enlightenment 
is  the  most  important  and  hence  the  most  bitterly  con- 
tested." 

Thus  religious  enlightenment  is  a  part  of  universal, 
cosmic,  enlightenment.  It  is  a  confusing  expression  to 
sav  that  it  is  confined  to  "all  fields  of  mental  life."  We  be- 
lieve  to  be  shedding  more  light  on  the  question  by  saying 
that  there  is  enlightenment  in  all  fields,  not  alone  in  the 
mental,  but  also  in  the  cosmic,  which  unites  both  the  mate- 
rial and  mental.  To  classify  this  field,  that  is  the  exhaus- 
tive task  of  our  understanding,  that  its  exhaustive  defini- 
tion. 


XI 


THE  DISTINCTION  BETWEEN  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  IS  ONE  OF 
THE  MEANS  OF  UNDERSTANDING 

The  processes  of  the  human  mind  and  their  subjective 
composition  cannot  be  analyzed  in  a  pure  state  and  with- 
out regard  to  their  objective  effects  any  more  than  handi- 
work can  be  explained  without  the  raw  material  to  be 
handled  and  the  products  derived  therefrom,  any  more 
than  any  work  can  be  described  in  a  pure  state  without 
regard  to  the  product. 

That  is  the  sad  defect  of  old  time  logic  which  is  an 
obstacle  to  its  further  advance:  it  literally  tears  things 
out  of  their  connections  and  forgets  the  necessity  of  inter- 
dependence over  the  need  of  special  study. 

The  instrument  which  produces  thought  and  knowl- 


402 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCO^IE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


edge  in  the  human  brain  is  not  an  isolated  thing,  nor  an 
isolated  quahty.  It  is  connected  not  only  with  the  brain 
and  the  nervous  system,  but  also  with  all  qualities  of  the 
soul.  True,  thinking  is  different  from  feeling,  but  it  is 
nevertheless  a  feeling  the  same  as  gladness  and  sorrow. 
Thought  is  called  incomprehensible  and  the  heart  unfath- 
omable. It  is  the  function  of  science,  of  thinking  and 
thought,  to  fathom  and  comprehend  what  as  yet  is  not 
fathomed  and  not  comprehended. 

Just  as  thinking  and  understanding  are  parts  of  the 
human  soul,  so  the  latter  is  a  part  of  physical  and  intel- 
lectual man.  Together  with  the  physical  development  of 
man,  of  the  species  as  well  as  of  the  individual,  the  soul 
also  develops  and  with  it  that  part  which  is  the  special 
object  of  the  theory  of  understanding,  viz.,  thought  and 
thinking.  Not  alone  does  physical  development  produce 
intellectual  development,  but,  vice  versa,  the  understand- 
ing reacts  on  the  physical  world.  The  one  is  not  merely  a 
cause,  nor  the  other  merely  an  effect.  This  obsolete  dis- 
tinction does  not  suffice  for  the  full  understanding  of  their 
interrelations.  We  pay  a  tribute  to  the  "thoughts  on  en- 
lightenment" of  Professor  Lazarus  quoted  in  the  previous 
chapter  by  acknowledging  that  they  throw  so  much  light 
on  a  certain  point  that  little  more  than  the  dot  over  the 
"i"  is  required  in  order  to  clear  up  a  bad  misunderstand- 
ing about  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect. 

Since  the  time  of  Aristotle  this  relation  has  been  called 
a  category.  We  have  already  noted  the  statement  which 
characterizes  the  age  of  enlightenment  as  one  in  which  the 
causal  category,  or  let  us  say  the  distinction  between  caufe 
and  effect,  became  the  dominant  issue.  Other  periods  live 
with  their  understanding,  with  their  thoughts,  in  other 
categories.  Though  the  ancient  Greeks  knew  the  distinc- 


DISTINCTION  RETWREN   CAUSE  AND  EFFECT 


403 


tlon  between  cause  and  effect,  yet  it  was  far  from  being 
the  dominant  point  of  view  in  their  search  after  scientific 
understanding.  Instead  of  regarding,  as  we  do  today, 
everything  as  effects  which  were  produced  by  preceding 
causes,  they  saw  in  every  process,  in  every  phenomenon,  a 
means  which  had  a  purpose.  The  category  of  means  and 
purpose  dominated  the  Greeks.  Socrates  admired  the 
knowledge  of  nature  displayed  by  Anaxagoras,  the  stories 
he  could  tell  of  sun,  moon,  and  stars.  But  as  Anaxagoras 
had  omitted  to  disclose  the  reasonable  purpose  of  the  pro- 
cesses of  nature,  Socrates  did  not  think  much  of  such  a 
natural  science.  At  that  period  the  means  and  the  pur- 
pose were  the  measure  of  reason,  the  handle  of  the  mind, 
the  category  of  understanding;  today  causes  and  effects 
have  taken  their  places. 

Between  the  golden  age  of  Greece  and  the  era  of  mod- 
ern science,  the  socalled  night  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
epoch  of  superstition,  extends.  If  then  you  started  out  on 
a  voyage  and  first  met  an  old  woman,  it  meant  misfortune 
for  you.  Wallenstein  cast  the  horoscope  before  he 
directed  his  troops.  '"Understanding"  was  gathered  from 
the  flight  of  a  bird,  the  cry  of  an  animal,  the  constellations 
of  stars,  the  meeting  with  an  old  woman.  The  category 
of  that  period  was  the  sign  and  its  consequences. 

And  according  to  Lazarus,  these  things  were  believed 
by  brains  which  were  by  no  means  dull.  "I  refer  to  a 
name  which  fills  us  all  with  veneration:  Kepler  believed 
in  astrology,  in  the  category  of  the  sign  and  its  conse- 
quence, together  with  the  thinkers  of  the  thousand  years 
before  him  and  of  his  own  century.  Astrology  was  a 
science  for  many  centuries,  promoted  together  with 
astronomy     .      .      .     and  by  the  same  people." 

The  peculiar  thing  in  this  statement  is  the  reference  to 


m 


u 


40  i 


THE   POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


the  category  of  sign  and  consequence  as  a  science.    This 
category  has  no  longer  a  place  in  modern  science. 

May  not  our  modern  viewpoint,  the  category  in  which 
our  present  day  science  thinks,  the  category  of  cause  and 
effect,  be  equally  transitory  ? 

The  ancients  have  accomplished  lasting  scientific  re- 
sults in  spite  of  their  "purposes."  Mediaeval  superstition 
with  its  "signs,"  its  astrology  and  alchemy,  has  likewise 
bequeathed  to  us  a  few  valuable  scientific  products.  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  even  the  greatest  partisans  of  modern 
science  do  not  deny  that  it  is  marred  by  various  adven- 
turous vagaries. 

The  categories  of  means  and  purposes,  of  signs  and 
consequences,  are  still  in  vogue  today  and  will  be  pre- 
served together  with  that  of  causes  and  effects.  The 
knowledge  that  this  latter  category  is  likewise  but  a  his- 
torical one  and  exerts  but  temporarily  a  dominating  influ- 
ence on  science  belongs  to  the  positive  outcome  of  phil- 
osophy, and  Professor  Lazarus,  with  all  his  advanced 
standpoint,  has  remained  behind  this  result  by  about  a 
yard. 

Kindly  note  that  it  is  not  the  extinction  of  the  relation 
between  cause  and  effect  which  we  predict,  but  merely  that 
of  its  dominance. 

Whoever  skips  lightly  over  the  current  of  life,  will  be 
greatly  shocked  when  reading  that  we  place  the  funda- 
mental pillar  of  all  perception,  the  category  of  cause 
and  effect,  in  the  same  passing  boat  in  which  the  prophets 
and  astrologers  rode.  One  is  very  prone  to  belittle  the 
faith  of  others  by  the  name  of  "superstition"  and  honor 
one's  own  superstition  by  the  title  of  "science." 

Once  we  have  grasped  the  fact  that  our  intellect  has 
no  other  purpose  than  that  of  tracing  a  human  picture  of 


DISTINCTION  BETWEEN   CAUSE  AND  EFFECT 


405 


cosmic  processes,  and  that  its  penetration  of  the  interior 
of  nature,  its  understanding,  explaining,  perceiving,  know- 
ing, etc.,  is  nothing  else,  and  cannot  be  anything  else,  that 
moment  it  loses  its  mysterious,  transcendental  metaphysi- 
cal character.  We  also  understand  then,  that  the  great 
spirit  above  the  clouds  who  is  supposed  to  create  the 
world  out  of  nothing,  could  very  well  serve  the  mind  as 
a  means  of  explaining  things.  And  it  is  the  same  with  the 
category  of  cause  and  effect,  which  is  a  splendid  means  of 
assisting  explanation,  but  still  will  not  suffice  for  the  re- 
quirements of  all  time  to  come. 

The  perception  that  the  great  spirit  above  the  clouds 
is  a  free  invention  of  the  small  human  mind  has  become 
so  widely  spread  that  we  may  well  pass  on  over  it  to  other 
things. 

Among  the  questions  now  on  the  order  of  business  is 
the  one  whether  the  "causes"  with  which  modern  science 
operates  so  widely  are  not  in  a  way  creators  in  miniature 
which  produce  their  effects  in  a  sleight-of-hand  way.  And 
this  erroneous  notion  is,  indeed,  the  current  conception. 

If  a  stone  falls  into  the  water,  it  is  the  cause  of  the 
undulations,  but  not  their  creator.  It  is  only  a  co-oper- 
ator, for  the  liquid  and  elastic  qualities  of  the  water  also 
act  as  a  cause.  If  the  stone  falls  into  butter,  it  creates  at 
best  but  one  undulation,  and  if  this  stony  creator  falls  on 
the  hard  ground,  it  is  all  up  with  the  creation  of  undula- 
tions. This  shows  that  causes  are  not  creators,  but  rather 
effects  which  are  not  effected,  but  effect  themselves. 

The  category  of  cause  and  effect  is  a  good  help  in  ex- 
planation, so  long  as  it  is  accompanied  by  the  philosoph- 
ical consciousness  that  the  whole  of  nature  is  an  infinite 
sea  of  transformations,  which  are  not  created  by  one  great 
or  many  small  creators,  but  which  create  themselves. 


406 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


A  well-known  philosophical  author  expresses  himself 
in  the  following  manner:  ''During  the  first  weeks  of  its 
existence,  the  child  has  no  perception  either  of  the  world 
without,  or  of  its  own  body,  or  of  its  soul.  Hence  its  feel- 
ing is  not  accompanied  by  the  consciousness  of  an  inter- 
action between  these  three  factors.  It  does  not  suspect  its 
causes."  We  see  that  soul,  body,  and  outer  world  are 
called  the  three  factors  of  feeling.  Now  note  how  each 
one  of  these  three  causes  or  factors  is,  so  to  say,  the  store 
house  of  innumerable  factors  or  causes,  all  of  which  cause 
the  feeling  of  the  child.  The  soul  consists  of  many  soul 
parts,  the  body  of  many  bodily  parts,  and  the  outer  world 
consists  of  so  many  parts  that  it  would  consist  of  ten  times 
more  parts,  if  there  were  any  more  than  innumerable. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  child's  feeling,  or  any  other, 
does  not  exist  independently,  but  is  dependent  on  the  soul, 
the  body,  and  the  outer  world.  This  constitutes  the  in- 
dubitable interrelation  of  all  things.  In  the  winding  pro- 
cesses of  the  self-agitated  universe,  the  category  of  cause 
and  effect  serves  as  a  means  of  enlightenment,  by  giving 
our  mind  its  help  in  the  systematization  of  processes.  If 
the  drop  of  a  stone  precedes,  the  undulations  of  the  water 
follow ;  if  soul,  body,  and  outer  world  are  present,  feeling 

follows. 

The  positive  outcome  of  philosophy  does  not  reject  the 
services  of  the  category  of  cause  and  effect.  It  only  re- 
jects the  mystical  element  in  that  category  in  which  many 
people,  even  among  those  with  a  "scientific  education," 
still  believe.  There  is  no  witchcraft  in  this  matter,  but 
simply  a  mechanical  systematization  and  classification  of 
natural  phenomena  in  the  order  of  their  appearance.  So 
long  as  water  remains  water  and  retains  its  liquid  and 
elastic  properties,  and  so  long  as  a  stone  is  a  stone,  a  pon- 


DISTINCTION   BETWEEN   CAUSE  AND  EFFECT 


407 


derous  fellow  striking  the  water  heavily,  just  so  long  will 
the  splash  of  the  stone  be  surely  and  inevitably  followed 
by  undulations  of  the  water.  So  long  as  soul,  body,  and 
outer  world  retain  their  known  properties,  they  will  with 
unfailing  precision  produce  feeling.  It  is  no  more  sur- 
prising that  we  can  affirm  this  on  the  strength  of  our  expe- 
rience than  that  we  have  a  category  of  cause  and  effect. 
There  exists  nothing  extraordinary  but  the  condition  of 
things,  and  in  this  respect  all  things  are  alike,  so  that 
human  understanding,  cause  and  effect,  or  any  other 
category,  are  no  more  extraordinary  than  any  other  condi- 
tion. The  only  wonder  is  the  universe,  but  this,  being  a 
universal  wonder,  is  at  the  same  time  trivial,  for  nothing 
is  so  familiar  as  that  which  is  common  to  all. 

By  the  help  of  the  viewpoint  of  cause  and  effect,  man 
throws  light  on  the  phenomena  of  nature.  Cause  and 
effect  serve  to  enlighten  us  about  the  world. 

The  way,  the  method,  by  which  this  enlightenment  is 
produced,  is  the  special  object  of  our  study.  We  do  not 
deny  that  cause  and  effect  serve  us  as  a  means,  but  only 
as  one  of  many.  We  honor  the  category  of  cause  and 
effect  far  too  much  when  we  regard  it  as  the  panacea. 
We  have  seen  that  formerly  other  viewpoints  served  the 
same  purpose  and  still  others  exist  today,  some  of  which 
have  a  prospect  of  being  valued  more  highly  in  the  future 
than  cause  and  effect.  This  category  serves  very  well  for 
the  explanation  of  processes  which  follow  one  another. 
But  there  are  other  phenomena  which  occur  side  by  side, 
and  these  must  also  be  elucidated.  For  such  a  purpose, 
the  category  of  genus  and  species  is  quite  as  serviceable. 
Haeckel  speaks  somewhat  slightingly  of  "museum  zoolog- 
ists and  herbarium  botanists."  because  they  merely  classify 
animals  and  plants  according  to  genera  and  species.    The 


408 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


modern  zoologists  and  botanists  do  not  simply  consider 
the  multiplicity  of  animals  and  plants  which  exist  simul- 
taneously, but  also  the  chronological  order  of  the  changes 
and  transformations,  and  in  this  way  they  have  gained 
much  more  of  a  life-picture  of  the  zoological  and  botanical 
world,  a  picture  not  alone  of  its  being,  but  also  of  its 
growing,  of  arising  and  declining.  Undoubtedly  the 
knowledge  of  the  museum  zoologists  and  herbarium  bot- 
anists was  meager,  narrow,  mechanical,  and  modern 
science  offers  a  far  better  portrait  of  truth  and  life.  Still 
this  is  no  reason  for  overestimating  the  value  of  analysis 
by  cause  and  effect.  This  method  supplements  the  cate- 
gory of  genus  and  species.  It  assists  in  enlightening,  it 
helps  in  the  process  of  thought,  but  it  does  not  render 
other  forms  of  thought  superfluous. 

It  is  essential  for  the  theory  of  understanding,  to  rec- 
ognize the  special  forms  of  thought  of  old  and  new  times 
as  peculiarities  which  have  a  common  nature.  This  com- 
mon nature  of  the  process  of  thought,  understanding,  en- 
lightenment, is  a  part  of  the  universal  world  process,  and 
not  greatly  different  from  it. 

The  conception  of  a  cause  partly  explains  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  universe :  but  so  does  the  conception  of  a 
purpose  and  of  a  species,  in  fact,  so  do  all  conceptions. 

In  the  universe  all  parts  are  causes,  all  of  them  caused, 
produced,  created,  and  yet  there  is  no  creator,  no  pro- 
ducer, no  cause.  The  general  produces  the  special,  and 
the  latter  in  turn  produces  by  reaction  the  general. 

The  category  of  the  general  and  the  special,  of  the  uni- 
verse and  its  parts,  contains  all  other  categories  in  the 
germ.  In  order  to  explain  the  process  of  thought,  we 
must  explain  it  as  a  part  of  the  universal  process.  It  has 
not  caused  the  creation  of  the  world,  neither  in  a  theologi- 


MIND  AND  MATTER 


409 


cal  nor  in  an  Idealist  sense,  nor  Is  It  a  mere  effect  of  the 
brain  substance,  as  the  materialists  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury represented  it.  The  process  of  thought  and  its  un- 
derstanding is  a  peculiarity  of  the  universal  cosmos.  The 
relation  of  the  general  to  the  special  is  the  clear  and  typi- 
cal category  underlying  all  other  categories. 

One  might  also  apply  other  names  to  this  category, 
for  instance,  the  one  and  the  many ;  the  essence  and  the 
form :  the  substance  and  its  attributes ;  truth  and  its  phe- 
nomena, etc.  However,  a  name  is  but  a  breath  and  a 
sound;  understanding  and  comprehension  are  what  we 
want  in  the  first  place. 


XIII 

MIND   AND   matter:    WHICH    IS   PRIMARY,    WHICH 

SECONDARY  ? 

It  is  the  merit  of  the  philosophical  outcome  to  have  de- 
livered the  process  of  understanding  from  its  mystic  ele- 
ments. So  long  as  cause  and  effect  are  not  recognized  as 
a  form  of  thought  belonging  to  the  same  species  with 
many  other  forms  of  thought,  all  of  which  serve  the  com- 
mon purpose  of  illuminating  the  cosmic  processes  for  the 
human  mind  by  a  symbolized  picture  composed  of  various 
conceptions,  just  so  long  will  something  mysterious  ad- 
here to  the  category  of  cause  and  effect. 

Philosophy  is  particularly  engaged  in  illummating  the 
imderstanding.  It  has  learned  enough  of  its  specialty  to 
know  that  it  is  a  part  of  the  universe  performing  the  spe- 
cial function  of  arranging  the  world  of  phenomena  and 
its  smaller  circles  according  to  relations  of  consanguinity 


410 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


and  chronolog}\  Such  an  arrangement  presents  a  scien- 
tific picture  of  the  world.  The  well-known  diagram  of 
conceptions  used  by  logicians,  consisting  of  a  large  circle 
symbolizing  the  general,  inside  of  which  smaller  circles 
crossing  and  encircling  one  another  represent  the  special- 
ties, is  a  fitting  aid  in  explaining  the  method  by  which 
the  faculty  of  understanding  arrives  at  its  scientific  re- 
sults. Science  in  general  is  the  sum  of  all  special  kinds 
of  knowledge,  differing  from  them  in  no  greater  degree 
than  the  human  body  from  the  various  organs  of  which  it 
is  composed.  A  bodily  organ  can  no  more  exist  outside 
of  the  body  than  any  particular  knowledge  can  exist  out- 
side of  the  generality  of  all  sciences.  No  metaphysics  is 
possible  under  this  condition. 

As  surely  as  we  know  that  two  mountains  cannot  be 
without  a  valley  between  them,  just  so  surely  do  we  know 
that  nothing  in  heaven,  on  earth,  or  in  any  other  place  can 
lie  outside  of  the  general  circle  of  things.  Outside  of  the 
worldly  world  there  can  be  no  other  little  world.  A  logi- 
cally constituted  human  mind  cannot  think  differently. 
And  it  is  likewise  impossible  to  discover  such  an  outside 
world  by  the  help  of  and  within  the  limits  of  experience, 
because  thought  is  inseparable  from  experience  and  there 
can  be  no  experience  without  thought.  A  man  who  has 
a  head  upon  his  shoulders — and  there  can  be  no  man  with- 
out a  head — cannot  experience  any  unworldly  metaphysi- 
cal world.  The  faculty  of  experience,  which  includes  the 
faculty  of  understanding  or  perception,  is  merely  empiri- 
cal. Our  settled  conviction  of  the  unity  of  the  universe  is 
an  inborn  logic.  The  unity  of  the  world  is  the  supreme 
and  most  universal  category.  A  closer  look  at  it  at  once 
reveals  the  fact  that  it  carries  its  opposite,  the  infinite  mul- 


MIND  AND  MATTER 


411 


tiplicity,  under  its  heart  or  in  its  womb.    The  general  is 
pregnant  with  specialties. 

This  is  a  comparison,  and  comparisons  limp.  A 
mother  has  other  qualities  beside  that  of  motherhood, 
while  the  universe,  or  the  absolute  generality,  is  nothing 
but  the  bearer,  the  cause,  of  all  special  and  separate  things. 
It  is  "pure"  motherhood  which  can  no  more  be  without 
children  than  the  children  without  a  mother.  In  this  way, 
no  cause  can  be  without  effects.  A  cause  without  an  effect 
—let  us  dismiss  it.  The  child  is  as  much  a  cause  in  moth- 
erhood as  it  is  its  effect  and  product.  In  the  same  way 
the  universe  has  never  been,  and  could  not  be  conceived, 
without  the  many  special  children  which  it  carries  in  its' 

womb. 

If  thought  wishes  to  make  for  itself  a  picture,  a  con- 
ception of  the  cause  of  all  causes,  it  must  necessarily  take 
cognizance  of  the  effects.  Thought  may  very  well  sepa- 
rate one  from  the  other,  but  cannot  think  correctly  with- 
out the  consciousness  that  its  separating  and  distinguish- 
ing is  only  a  formality.  Imagining,  conceiving,  knowing, 
perceiving,  are  so  many  formalities.* 

But  philosophy  took  its  departure  from  the  opposite, 
the  wrong,  view.  It  regarded  perceiving,  understanding, 
as  the  main  thing.  It  did  not  use  science  as  a  formality, 
as  something  secondary,  as  something  serving  a  nature,  a 
cause,  a  purpose,  a  higher  reason,  but  it  started  with  the 
illogical  and  irrelevant  assumption  that  the  specialty  of 
•mind,  understanding,  conceiving,  judging,  distinguishing, 
is  the  primary,  supreme,  self-constituted  cause  and  pur- 
pose, instead  of  being  an  element  in  logic.    Even  in 


[*By  means  of  which  we  picture  and  explain  the  monistic  inter- 
relation of  all  things,  called  universe,  nature  and  cosmos.— Editor.] 


412 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


Hegel's  logic,  which,  by  the  way,  has  given  us  much  light 
on  the  process  of  thought,  this  confounding  of  the  original 
with  the  copy  is  the  cause  of  an  almost  impenetrable 
mysticism. 

Not  nature,  but  science  is  to  those  idealist  philosophers 
the  source  of  truth.  The  "true  idea"  surpassed  everything 
with  them.  This  ''idea"  is  forced  by  Hegel  to  roll  about, 
and  wind,  and  twist  as  if  it  were  not  a  natural  child,  but  a 
metaphysical  dragon.  But  we  cannot  deny  that  in  these 
twistings  and  windings  of  the  Hegelian  dragon  the  condi- 
tion of  the  mind  is  exposed  in  all  its  peculiarities  and 
nakedness. 

According  to  Hegel's  theosophical  opinion  I  do  not  be- 
come aware  of  my  friend  in  material  intercourse  and 
bodily  touch.  Hegel's  mark  of  a  true  friend  is  not  that 
he  proves  true  in  life,  but  that  he  corresponds  "to  his 
idea."  The  "idea"  of  true  friendship  is  for  the  idealist  the 
measure  of  friendly  truth,  just  as  Plato  measures  the  ideal 
or  true  condition  of  states  and  cooking  pots  of  this  valley 
of  sorrows  by  the  standard  of  an  "idea"  of  the  state,  or  an 
"idea"  of  the  cooking  pot,  supposed  to  be  derived  from 
some  other  world. 

It  is  surely  a  valuable  gift  of  nature  that  the  human 
mind  can  form  its  ideals.  But  it  is  a  gift  that  has  also 
caused  much  trouble  and  which  requires  for  its  higher 
development  the  clear  understanding  that  ideals  are  con- 
structed out  of  real  materials.  Without  this  understand- 
ing the  human  race  will  never  succeed  in  making  a  rea- 
sonable use  of  its  ideal  faculty.  The  beautiful  ideal  of 
true  friendship  may  stimulate  us  to  emulation.  But  the 
knowledge  that  it  is  nothing  but  an  ideal  which  in  reality 
is  always  mixed  with  a  little  falseness  serves  as  no  mean 
antidote  against  sentimental  transcendentalism.    And  the 


MIND  AND  MATTER 


413 


same  holds  true  of  truth,  liberty,  justice,  equality,  brother- 
hood, etc. 

The  striving  after  an  ideal  is  very  good,  but  it  does  no 
harm  to  be  conscious  of  the  fact  and  clearly  see  that  any 
ideal  can  never  be  realized  without  some  admixture  of  its 
opposite.  What  is  it  that  Lessing  says?  "If  God  were  to 
offer  me  the  search  for  truth  in  his  left  hand,  and  truth  in 
his  right,  I  should  grasp  his  left  hand  and  say:  Father, 
keep  truth,  it  is  for  you  alone." 

It  has  not  been  the  task  of  philosophy  to  give  us  a  true 
mind  picture  of  the  world.  This  it  cannot  do,  this  cannot 
be  done  by  any  scientific  specialty.  It  may  be  done  by 
the  totality  of  sciences,  and  even  by  them  only  approxi- 
mately. Even  with  them  striving  is  a  higher  truth  and  of 
higher  value  than  knowing.  I  repeat,  then :  It  is  not  the 
particular  task  of  philosophy  to  furnish  a  true  picture  of 
the  world,  but  rather  to  investigate  the  method  by  which 
the  human  mind  arrives  at  its  world  pictures.  That  is  its 
work,  and  it  is  the  object  of  this  book  to  sketch  its  outline. 
A  sketch  is  in  itself  an  inexact  piece  of  work.  I  may 
be  blamed  for  jumbling  together  such  terms  as  world, 
cosmos,  universe,  nature,  or  such  others  as  ideas,  judg- 
ment, conclusion,  thought,  mind,  intellect,  etc.,  and  for 
using  them  as  synonyms  when  many  of  them  have  already 
been  assigned  their  fixed  meaning  in  the  classification  of 
science.  But  this  is  the  point  which  I  emphasize,  that  the 
method  of  science,  of  thought,  has  the  twofold  nature  of 
making  fixed  terms  and  still  remaining  pliable. 

Science  not  only  defines  what  this  or  that  is,  but  also 
how  it  moves,  how  it  originates,  passes  away,  and  still 
remains ;  how  it  is  fixed  and  yet  at  the  same  time  moving. 
The  real  being  of  which  science  treats,  viz.,  the  universe, 
is  not  alone  present,  but  also  past  and  future,  and  it  is 


414 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOMK  OF  PTTII-OSOPIIY 


not  alone  this  or  that,  but  it  is  everything-.  Even  nothing 
is  something  belonging  to  the  aggregate  life. 

This  dialectic  statement  is  rather  incomprehensible  to 
the  unphilosophical  brain.  Nothing  and  something  are 
conceptions  so  widely  diverging  from  one  another  in  the 
unphilosophical  mind  that  they  seem  far  more  apart  than 
heavenly  bliss  is  supposed  to  be  separated  from  earthly 
misery,  according  to  the  declarations  of  clergymen. 
Clergymen  are  transcendental  logicians,  and  it  is  likewise 
transcendental  to  regard  nothing  as  an  absolute  nothing. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  it  is  at  least  a  conception  or  a 
term.  Therefore,  whether  little  or  much,  it  is  something. 
We  cannot  get  out  of  existence,  out  of  the  universe,  any 
more  than  Aliinchhausen  can  pull  himself  out  of  a  swamp 
by  his  pigtail. 

There  can  be  no  absolute  nothing,  because  the  absolute 
is  synonymous  with  the  universe,  and  everything  else  is 
relative.  So  it  is  also  with  nothing.  It  simply  has  the 
significance  of  not  being  the  main  thing.  To  say :  This 
is  nothing  means  it  is  not  that  which  is  essential  at  this 
time  and  place.  This  man  is  nothing  simply  means  that 
he  is  not  a  man  out  of  the  ordinary,  and  it  does  not  at  all 
signify  that  he  is  nothing  at  all. 

The  category  of  being  and  not  being,  like  all  cate- 
gories,* which  appear  as  something  fixed  to  the  sound  but 
ill-informed  mind,  is  really  something  shifting.  Its  poles 
fuse  and  flow  into  one  another,  its  differences  are  not  per- 
fectly radical.  These  categories  give  us  an  illustration  of 
the  mobile  universe,  which  is  a  unit  composed  of  its  oppo- 
site, multiplicity. 


♦That  is,  like  all  categories  that  are  subdivisions  of  the  absolute 
being,  of  general  existence,  pertaining  only  to  the  phenomena  or 
spocin!t5'-<;.  wMrh,  however,  in  th^ir  ontlrotv  constitute  the  absolute 
the  absolute  beinir  or  monistic  nature.— Editor. 


Mir^D  AND  MATTER 


415 


The  positive  outcome  of  philosophy  has  for  its  climax 
the  understanding  that  the  world  is  multifarious,  and  that 
this  multiplicity  is  uniform  in  possessing  the  universal 
nature  in  common.  The  sciences  must  represent  these 
objects  in  such  a  contradictory  way,  because  all  things  live 
in  reality  in  this  contradiction.  What  the  museum  zoolo- 
gists and  the  herbarium  botanists  have  accomplished  on 
the  field  of  zoology  and  botany  in  the  category  of  space, 
has  been  accepted  by  the  Darwinians  with  the  addition  of 
the  variety  of  those  subjects  in  the  category  of  time. 
Either  class  of  scientists  categorizes,  classifies,  systema- 
tizes. The  chemists  do  the  same  with  substances  and 
forces,  and  so  does  Hegel  with  his  categories  of  being  and 
not  being,  quantity  and  quality,  substance  and  attribute, 
thing  and  quality,  cause  and  effect,  etc.  He  makes  all 
things  flow  into  one  another,  rise,  pass,  move,  and  he  is 
right  in  doing  so.  Everything  moves  and  belongs 
together. 

But  that  which  Hegel  missed  and  which  is  added  by  us 
consists  in  the  further  perception  that  the  flow  and  the 
variability  of  the  categories  just  quoted  is  only  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  necessary  variability  and  interaction  of  all 
thoughts  and  conceptions,  which  are,  and  must  be,  nothing 
but  illustrations  and  reflexes  of  the  universal  life. 

However,  the  idealist  philosophers  who  have  an  of 
them  contributed  materially  toward  this  ultimate  special 
knowledge,  are  still  more  or  less  under  the  mistaken  im- 
pression that  the  process  of  thinking  is  the  true  process 
and  the  true  original,  and  that  the  true  original,  nature  or 
the  material  universe,  is  only  a  secondary  phenomenon. 
We  now  insist  on  having  it  understood  that  the  cosmic 
interaction  of  phenomena,  the  universal  living  world,  is 
the  truth  and  life. 


416 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


Is  the  world  a  concept ?  Is  It  an  idea?  It  may  be  con- 
ceived and  grasped  by  the  mind,  but  it  does  and  is  more 
than  that.  It  surpasses  our  understanding  in  the  past,  the 
present,  and  the  future.  It  is  infinite  in  quantity  and 
quahty.  How  do  we  know  that?  We  say  in  the  same 
breath  that  we  do  not  know  everything  which  is  passing, 
has  passed,  and  will  pass  in  the  world ;  we  do  not  under- 
stand the  whole,  and  yet  we  claim  to  have  fully  under- 
stood that  this  whole  universe  is  not  a  mere  idea,  but 
something  absolute,  something  more  than  a  conception  or 
an  intuitive  knowledge,  something  real  and  true,  some- 
thing infinite.    How  do  we  solve  this  contradiction 

The  science  of  the  limitation  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  collective  human  intellect  is  identical  with  the  univer- 
sal concept ;  in  other  words,  it  is  innate  in  the  human  intel- 
lect to  know  that  it  is  a  limited  part  of  the  absolute  uni- 
verse. This  intellectual  faculty  of  ours  is  no  less  natural 
and  aboriginal  than  the  faculty  of  trees  to  become  green 
in  summer  and  that  of  the  spiders  to  spread  their  nets. 
Although  the  intellect  is  a  limited  part  of  the  unlimited 
and  aware  of  this  fact,  yet  its  faculty  of  knowing,  under- 
standing, judging,  is  a  universal  one.  No  intellect  is  pos- 
sible or  conceivable  which  can  do  more  than  the  instru- 
ment of  thought  given  by  nature  to  the  human  race.  We 
may  indeed  conceive  of  a  mental  giant.  But  when  we  take 
a  closer  look,  every  one  will  perceive  that  this  mental  giant 
cannot  get  outside  of  the  traditional  race  of  thinkers,  un- 
less he  is  supposed  to  be  the  creature  of  imagination. 

Thinking,  knowing,  understanding,  are  universal.  I 
can  perceive  all  things  in  about  the  same  way  that  I  can 
see  all  cobble  stones.  I  can  see  them  all,  but  I  cannot  see 
everything  that  they  are  composed  of,  I  cannot  see,  for  in- 
stance, that  they  are  heavy  and  ponderable.    In  the  same 


MIND  AND  MATTER 


417 


way  all  things  may  be  perceived,  but  not  everything  that 
belongs  to  them.  They  do  not  dissolve  in  understanding, 
in  other  words,  understanding  is  only  a  part  of  the  uni- 
verse, all  of  which  may  be  perceived,  but  the  understand- 
ing of  which  is  not  the  whole,  since  our  intellect  is  but  a 
part  of  the  universe. 

Everything  may  be  understood,  but  understanding  is 
not  everything.  Every  pug-dog  is  a  dog,  but  every  dog 
is  not  a  pug-dog.  The  conflict  of  idealism  and  material- 
ism rests  on  this  same  conflict  between  genus  and  subordi- 
nate species.  The  idealist  incarnate  contends  that  all 
things  are  ideas,  while  we  strive  to  make  him  see  that 
ideal  things  and  material  things  are  two  species  of  the 
same  genus,  and  that  they  should  be  given  a  common  fam- 
ily or  general  name  beside  their  special  name,  on  account 
of  their  common  nature  and  for  the  purpose  of  a  sound 
logic.  Wherever  this  understanding  has  been  acquired, 
the  quarrel  between  idealists  and  materialists  appears  in 
the  light  of  a  mere  bandying  of  words. 

Everything  is  large,  everything  is  small,  everything 
extended  through  space  and  time,  everything  cause  and 
everything  effect,  everything  a  whole  and  a  part,  because 
everything  is  the  essence  of  everything,  because  every- 
thing is  contained  in  the  all,  everything  related,  every- 
thing connected,  everything  interdependent.  The  con- 
ception of  all  as  the  absolute,  the  content  of  which  consists 
of  innumerable  relativities,  the  concept  of  the  all  as  the 
universal  truth  which  reflects  many  phenomena,  that  is 
the  basis  of  the  science  of  understanding. 


418 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


XIII 


THE  EXTENT  TO  WHICH  THE  DOUBTS  OF  THE  POSSIBILITY 
OF  CLEAR  AND  ACCURATE  UNDERSTANDING  HAVE  BEEN 
OVERCOME 

A  contemporaneous  professor  of  philosophy,  Kuno 
Fischer,  of  Jena,  says :  "The  problem  of  modern  philos- 
ophy is  the  understanding  of  things."  But  this  problem 
docs  not  occupy  modern  philosophy  alone ;  it  was  also  con- 
sidered by  ancient  philosophy.  Even  more,  it  belongs  to 
the  whole  world.  All  the  world,  I  mean  the  whole  human 
world,  and  especially  the  sciences,  search  after  understand- 
ing. I  do  not  say  this  for  the  purpose  of  setting  the  Pro- 
fessor right,  for  I  acknowledge  that  he  is  a  fairly  deserv- 
ing philosopher.  If  I  cared  to  go  through  his  works,  I 
should  surely  find  other  passages  which  state  the  problem 
of  philosophy  more  accurately  and  concretely,  to  the  effect 
that  philosophy  does  not  strive  merely  for  the  indefinite 
''understanding  of  things,"  but  rather  for  the  special  un- 
derstanding of  that  particular  thing  which  bears  the  name 
of  "understanding."  Philosophy  at  the  climax  of  its  de- 
velopment seeks  to  understand  "understanding."  It  has 
seriously  attempted  the  solution  of  this  problem  so  long  as 
men  think,  so  far  as  our  historical  records  go. 

After  that  which  we  have  already  said  about  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end  of  things  and  about  their  immortality, 
it  will  be  easily  understood  that  the  thing  called  under- 
standing has  no  more  historical  beginning  than  all  the 
rest.  The  known  grows  out  of  the  unknown,  the  con- 
scious out  of  the  unconscious.  Our  modern  conscious- 
ness, though  agreeably  cultivated,  is  still  an  undeveloped, 
unconscious  consciousness.  Nevertheless,  development 
has  gone  far  enough  to  make  it  plain  that  understanding 


PROGRESS  TOWARD  CLEAR  UNDERSTANDING 


419 


is  anti-religious.  Especially  the  understanding  of  under- 
standing, the  outcome  of  positive  philosophy,  has  a  pro- 
nounced anti-religious,  and  to  that  extent  "destructive," 
tendency.  But  one  should  not  have  an  exaggerated  idea 
of  this  destruction.  Here,  under  this  sun,  nothing  is  de- 
stroyed without  leaving  the  basis  for  the  growth  of  new 
life  from  the  ruins.  It  belongs  to  the  conception  of  the 
universe  to  understand  that  it  is  the  main  conception  re- 
quired for  the  conception  of  conception,  for  the  under- 
standing of  understanding. 

The  history  of  philosophy  begins  with  the  decay  of 
heathen  religion,  and  the  history  of  modern  philosophy 
with  the  decay  of  Christian  religion.  Since  religion  must 
be  preserved  for  the  people  according  to  the  official  declar- 
ations of  the  rulers,  the  official  professors  are  not  clear 
and  accurate  expounders  of  the  positive  outcome  of  phil- 
osophy. No  matter  how  great  the  work  of  Spinoza,  Leib- 
niz, Kant,  and  Hegel  may  be,  yet  the  followers  of  Kant 
and  Hegel  have  no  freedom  of  research,  and  Kuno 
Fischer,  although  very  close  to  the  root  of  the  subject,  is 
nevertheless  doomed  to  remain  in  the  mystification  of  the 
function  of  conceiving  and  of  understanding.  His  pro- 
fession clouds  his  judgment. 

"Nature,"  says  this  professor,  "is  regarded  as  the  first 
object  of  understanding,  as  the  principle  from  which 
everything  else  follows.  In  this  respect  modern  philos- 
ophy is  naturalistic.  It  is  taken  for  granted  that  nature 
can  be  understood,  or  that  the  possibility  of  understand- 
ing things  is  given.  Modern  philosophy  makes  this  as- 
sumption dogmatically.  .  .  .  The  Kantian  philos- 
ophy, on  the  other  hand,  assumes  a  critical,  not  a  dog- 
matic, attitude  toward  the  possibility  of  understanding." 
(System  of  Logic  and  Metaphysics,  by  Kuno  Fischer,  sec- 


420 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


end  edition,  pages  104  and  100.)  Tn  this  latter,  critical, 
stage,  the  subject  is  kept  rather  hot  by  the  professors  of 
philosophy.  The  critics  are  still  engaged  in  exclaiming: 
Be  amazed,  oh  world !    How  is  understanding  possible  ? 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  nothing  to  be  amazed  at. 
Why  is  not  the  ''naturalistic"  philosopher  consistent  by 
recognizing  his  special  object,  understanding,  as  a  natural 

object? 

The  '"supposition"  that  an  understanding  of  things  is 
possible,  is  neither  a  supposition  nor  anything  "dogmatic." 

The  philosophers  should  abandon  their  old  hobby  of 
trying  to  prove  anything  by  syllogisms.  Nowadays,  a  case 
is  not  substantiated  by  words,  but  by  facts,  by  deeds.  The 
sciences  are  sufficiently  equipped,  and  thus  the  "possibility 
of  understanding"  is  demonstrated  beyond  a  doubt. 

"But,"  say  the  critics  who  are  so  wise  that  they  hear 
the  grass  growing,  "are  those  perceptions  which  are  pro- 
duced by  the  exact  sciences  really  perceptions  ?  Are  they 
not  simply  substitutes?  Those  sciences  recognize  only 
the  phenomena  of  things ;  but  where  is  the  understanding 
which  perceives  the  truth?" 

We  shall  offer  it  to  them.  You  are  naturalists.  Well, 
then,  nature  is  the  truth.  Or  are  you  spiritualists  who 
make  a  metaphysical  distinction  between  the  truth  and 
the  phenomenon?  To  understand  means  to  distinguish 
and  judge.  The  semblance  must  be  distinguished  from 
the  truth,  but  not  in  an  excessive  manner.  It  must  be  re- 
membered that  even  the  most  evil  semblance  is  a  natural 
phenomenon,  and  the  sublimest  truth  is  only  revealed  by 
phenomena,  just  because  it  is  natural. 

But  the  old  logic  cannot  stand  any  contradictions. 
Semblance  and  truth  are  contradictions  for  it  and  they 
cannot  be  reconciled  by  it.    But  the  irreconcilable  simply 


PROGRESS  TOWARD  CLEAR  UNDERSTANDING 


421 


consists  in  entertaining,  in  this  monistic  world,  thoughts 
which  are  supposed  to  be  totally  different.  Hence  old 
style  logic  lacks  entirely  the  mediating  manner  of  thought 
which  does  not  elevate  understanding  and  its  faculty  of 
thought  to  the  skies,  but  is  satisfied  to  regard  it  as  a  very 
valuable,  but  still  natural,  quality. 

The  old  logic  could  not  construct  any  valid  rules  of 
thought,  because  it  thought  too  transcendentally  of  think- 
ing itself.  It  was  not  satisfied  that  thought  is  only  a 
faculty,  a  mode  of  doing,  a  part  of  true  nature,  but  the 
nature  of  truth  was  spiritualized  by  it  into  a  transcen- 
dental being.  Instead  of  grasping  the  conception  of  spirit 
with  blood  and  flesh,  it  tries  to  dissolve  blood  and  flesh 
into  ideas.  That  would  be  well  enough,  if  such  a  solution 
of  the  riddles  were  meant  to  have  no  other  significance 
than  that  of  symbols. 

The  old  logic  contains  long  chapters  about  the  proofs 
of  truth.  It  is  supposed  to  be  "identical"  with  the  idea 
and  to  be  proven  by  ideas.  This  would  be  all  right,  if  we 
remained  conscious  of  the  secondary  relation  in  which  the 
idea  and  understanding  stand  to  truth.  But  old  line  logic 
is  not  conscious  of  this  relation.  On  the  contrary.  Its 
consciousness  distorts  that  relation.  It  elevates  the  mind 
to  the  first  place  and  relegates  blood  and  flesh  to  the  last. 

"The  necessity  of  a  conception  is  proven  by  the  impos- 
sibility of  its  opposite.  An  idea  is  contradicted  by  proving 
its  impossibility.  This  impossibility  is  demonstrated  when 
it  can  be  proven  that  a  thing  is  at  the  same  time  A  and 
not-A,  or  when  it  can  be  shown  that  a  thing  is  neither  A 
nor  not-A.  The  first  mode  of  proof  is  called  atitinomy, 
the  second,  dilemma." 

In  this  representation  of  the  logical  proof  much  is  said 
of  the  ''thing,"  for  instance  this :    A  thing  cannot  be  at 


422 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


the  same  time  straight  and  crooked,  true  and  untrue,  light 
and  dark.  The  excellence  of  this  doctrine  is  easily  appar- 
ent, because  it  is  overlooked  that  the  concept  "thing"  is 
not  a  fixed,  but  a  variable  one.  If  a  straight  line  is  a 
thing,  and  a  crooked  line  another  thing,  and  if  these  two 
things  are  held  to  be  opposed  to  one  another,  then  the 
above  logic  is  the  most  justified  in  the  world.  But  who 
claims  that  there  are  not  many  straight  lines  which  are 
crooked  at  one  end,  which  run  straight  on  for  a  certain 
distance  and  then  turn?  Who  will  define  to  us  what  a 
line  is  ?  A  line  may  be  composed  of  10,  20,  30,  etc.,  parts, 
and  each  part  is  a  line. 

Before  anything  to  the  point  can  be  said  about  the 
logical  laws,  it  is  necessary  to  say  above  all  how  it  stands 
with  the  relation  of  the  whole  to  its  parts,  of  the  universe 
to  its  subdivisions.  The  old  theological  question  of  God 
and  his  creatures,  the  old  metaphysical  question  of  the 
unity  and  the  multiplicity,  of  truth  and  its  phenomena, 
reason  and  consequence,  etc.,  in  one  word,  the  question  of 
metaphysical  categories  must  be  solved  and  settled  before 
the  definition  of  the  minor  factors  of  understanding,  tlie 
questions  of  formal  logic,  can  be  attempted. 

What  is  a  **thing?"  A  clergyman  would  answer: 
Only  God  is  something,  everything  else  is  nothing !  And 
we  say:  Only  the  universe  is  something,  and  everything 
in  it  consists  of  vacillating,  changing,  precarious,  vari- 
colored, fluid,  variable  phenomena  or  relativities. 

In  our  times,  up  to  which  the  theologians  have  specu- 
lated so  much  and  contributed  so  little  to  understanding, 
one  can  hardly  touch  on  the  God  concept  without  annoy- 
ing the  reader.  Yet  it  is  very  essential  for  a  thorough 
understanding  of  the  human  mind  to  point  out  that  the 
God  concept  and  the  universe  concept  arc  analogous  con- 


PROGRESS  TOWARD  CLEAR  UNDERSTANDING  423 


cepts.  Not  in  vain  have  the  first  minds  of  modern  philos- 
ophy, such  as  Cartesius,  Spinoza,  Leibniz,  occupied  them- 
selves so  closely  with  the  God  concept.  They  invented  the 
socalled  ontological  proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  This 
proof  if  applied  to  the  universe,  testifies  to  its  divinity.  A 
metaphysical  cloud  pusher  as  well  as  the  physical  cosmos 
are  fundamentally  concepts  of  the  most  perfect  being.  It 
makes  little  difference  whether  we  say  that  the  concept  of 
the  universe,  or  of  the  cosmos,  or  of  the  most  perfect 
being  is  innate  in  man.  If  this  concept  were  not  existing, 
it  would  lack  the  main  thing  required  for  its  perfection. 
Hence  the  most  perfect  being  must  exist.  And  it  does. 
It  is  the  universe,  and  everything  belongs  to  its  existence. 
Nothing  is  excluded  from  it,  least  of  all  understanding. 
The  latter  is,  therfore,  not  only  possible,  but  a  fact,  which 
is  proven  by  the  very  concept  of  the  most  perfect  being. 

This  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  help  us  over  the  doubts 
of  the  critics,  especially  over  Kantian  criticism,  or  rather 
dualism.  Kant  did  not  care  to  accept  the  dogma  of  the 
possibility  of  understanding  without  examination;  he 
wished  to  investigate  first.  He  then  discovered  that  we 
may  understand  correctly,  provided  we  remain  with  our 
understanding  on  the  field  of  common  experience ;  in 
other  words,  in  the  physical  universe,  and  refrain  from 
digressing  into  the  metaphysical  heaven.  But  he  did  not 
understand  that  the  metaphysical  heaven  against  which 
he  warns  us  would  be  an  obsolete  standpoint  in  our  days. 
He  still  permits  that  transcendental  possibility  to  re- 
main and  while  he  warns  us  not  to  stray  into  it  with  our 
understanding  he  omits  to  tell  us  to  also  keep  away  from 
it  with  our  intuition.  Kant  struggles  about  between  the 
"thing  as  phenomenon"  and  the  "thing  itself."  The 
former  is  material  and  may  be  understood,  the  latter  is 


424 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


supernatural  and  may  be  believed  or  divined.  With  this 
doctrine,  he  again  made  understanding,  the  object  of  mod- 
ern philosophy,  problematical,  thus  inviting  us  to  investi- 
gate further. 

This  we  have  done,  and  it  is  now  the  positive  outcome 
of  philosophy  to  know  clearly  and  definitely  and  under- 
stand that  understanding  is  not  only  a  part  of  this  world 
of  phenomena,  but  a  true  part  of  the  general  truth,  beside 
which  there  is  no  other  truth,  and  which  is  the  most  per- 
fect being. 

Philosophy  took  its  departure  from  confused  wrang- 
ling about  that  which  is  and  that  which  is  not,  especially 
from  the  religious  disappointments  met  by  the  Greek 
nation  when  its  world  of  deities  dissolved  into  phantasms. 
Humanity  demands  a  positive,  strong,  unequivocal,  relia- 
ble understanding.  Now,  in  this  world  of  ours,  the  solid 
is  so  mixed  with  the  fluid,  the  imperishable  with  the  per- 
ishable, that  a  total  separation  is  impossible.  Neverthe- 
less our  intellect  catches  itself  continually  making  separa- 
tions and  distinctions.  Should  not  that  appear  mysterious 
to  it?  The  necessary  and  natural  result  was  the  problem 
of  the  theory  of  understanding,  the  special  question  of 
philosophy :  Which  is  the  way  to  an  indubitably  clear  and 
positive  understanding? 

The  summit  of  Grecian  philosophy  bears  the  name  of 
Aristotle.  He  was  a  practical  man  who  did  not  like  to 
stray  into  the  distance  when  he  could  find  good  things 
near  by,  and  he  did  not  concern  himself  about  the  descent 
of  understanding.  Its  platonic  origin  from  an  ideal  world 
went  instinctively  against  his  grain.  He,  therefore,  took 
hold  of  the  question  at  the  nearest  end  and  analyzed  the 
positive  knowledge  available  at  that  time.  But  since 
Grecian  science  and  the  knowledge  of  Aristotlean  times 


PROGRESS  TOWARD  CLEAR  UNDERSTANDING 


42  J 


were' rather  slim,  his  attempt  to  demonstrate  logic  did  not 
produce  any  decisive  results.  But  it  had  been  discovered 
that  it  was  possible  to  make  positive  deductions  from  fixed 
premises. 

Aristotle  clung  to  this.  He  showed  clearly  and  defi- 
nitely, excellently  and  substantially,  how  logical  deduc- 
tions should  be  made  in  order  to  arrive  at  positive  under- 
standing. All  dogs  are  watchful.  My  pug-dog  is  a  dog, 
therefore  it  is  watchful.  What  can  be  more  evident? 
Why,  then,  speculate  about  God,  freedom,  and  immor- 
tality, when  indubitable  knowledge  may  be  obtained  by 
the  formal  method  of  exact  deductions? 

But  Aristotle  had  overlooked  something,  pr,  being  a 
practical  man,  perhaps  overlooked  it  intentionally.  The 
premise  from  which  he  deducted  the  watchfulness  of  dogs 
in  general,  was  handed  down  by  tradition  and  had  been 
accepted  on  faith.  But  was  it  founded  on  fact?  Could 
there  not  be  some  dogs  who  lacked  the  quality  of  watch- 
fulness, and  might  not  our  pug-dog  be  very  unreliable,  in 
spite  of  all  exact  deductions  ?  In  the  case  of  the  pug-dog 
this  would  not  be  of  very  great  moment.  But  what  about 
the  question  of  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  world,  or  the 
question  of  the  existence  of  God  ?  The  Grecian  gods  had 
been  outgrown  by  Aristotle. 

The  history  of  logic,  and  of  philosophy  in  general,  is 
interrupted  by  Christianity  and  by  the  decline  of  the 
antique  world,  until  the  reformation  opens  a  new  era. 
The  Catholic  church  had,  in  its  own  way,  thoroughly  set- 
tled the  great  questions  of  the  true  nature  of  things,  of 
beginning  and  end,  reason  and  consequence.  But  when 
it,  and  with  it  Christianity,  began  to  disintegrate,  disbelief 
once  more  posed  in  the  brains  of  the  philosophers  the  old 
question  :  How  do  we  obtain  reliable  and  true  understand- 


426 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


ing?    Reliability  and  truth  were  at  that  time  still  Identical. 
Bacon  and  Descartes  are  the  men  who  started  the  in- 
vestigation.   Both  of  them  were  disgusted  with  Aristotle 
and  with  his  formal  logic,  particularly  with  the  subtleties 
of  scholasticism.     It  did  not  satisfy  this  new  epoch  to 
found  positive  understanding  on  traditional  contentions 
and  exact  deductions  therefrom.     It  is  a  radical  epoch 
and,    therefore,   epoch-making.    The    new   philosophers 
have  the  aim  of  unequivocal  understanding  in  common 
with  the  ancient  philosophers.     Bacon  still  connects  him- 
self with  the  stock  in  trade  of  the  past.     His  historian 
says  of  him  that  one  should  not  reiterate  that  Bacon  took 
his  departure  from  experience,  for  this  means  nothing  or 
nothing  more  than  that  Columbus  was  a  mariner  while 
the  main  thing  is  that  he  discovered  America.  ...   He 
wanted  to  find  a  new  logic  corresponding  to  the  new  life. 
.    .    .  The  inventive  human  mind  has  created  the  new 
time,  the  compass,  the  powder,  the  art  of  typography.   .    . 
He  wanted  a  new  logic  which  corresponded  to  the  spirit 
of   invention.     He,   the  philosopher   of   invention,   was 
Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  was  a  man  of  the  world. 
Not  only  himself,  but  also  his  science,  was  too  ambitious, 
too  full  of  energy,  too  world-embracing,  for  him  to  bury 
himself  in  solitude.     That  is  a  glory  for  a  philosopher, 
but  at  the  same  time  an  obstacle  for  his  special  task,  for 
the  new  logic.    He  recognized  the  import  of  his  task  only 
in  its  general  outlines.     But  his  contemporary  and  suc- 
cessor Descartes  approached  the  matter  more  radically 
and  pointedly. 

Although  in  recent  times  the  human  mind  had  demon- 
strated its  positive  faculty  of  understanding  in  natural 
sciences,  especially  by  inventions,  still  it  was  prejudiced 
by  religious  improbabilities  in  its  great  premises  dealing 


PROGRESS  TOWARD  CLEAR  UNDERSTANDING  427 


with  the  essence  of  things  and  men,  with  the  ''good,  true, 
and  beautiful/'  as  the  ancients  called  it.  In  order  to  end 
his  doubts,  Descartes  elevates  radical  doubt  to  the  posi- 
tion of  a  principle  and  of  a  starting  point  for  all  under- 
standing. Then  he  cannot  doubt  that  he  is  at  least  search- 
ing for  truth.  He  who  does  not  believe  in  any  under- 
standing, any  science,  any  inventions,  cannot  doubt  at  all 
events  that  the  impulse  for  understanding  is  there.  It,  at 
least,  is  undeniable.  Cogito,  ergo  sum— I  think,  therefore 
I  am — that  is  a  premise  which  cannot  be  shaken.  The  rest, 
thinks  Descartes,  may  be  deducted  by  Aristotlean  methods. 

With  this  thought,  the  philosopher  of  modern  times 
relapsed  into  the  old  error  that  anything  positively  true 
could  be  ascertained  with  logical  formulas.  His  con- 
sciousness of  the  thoughts  stirring  in  his  brain,  I  might 
say  his  flesh  and  blood,  convinced  him  by  matter-of-fact 
evidence  of  the  reality  of  their  existence. 

This  fact  had  hitherto  been  misunderstood.  It  is 
claimed  that  Descartes  could  convince  himself  only  of  the 
existence  of  his  soul,  of  his  thought,  by  evidence.  No, 
my  feeling,  my  sight,  my  hearing,  etc.,  are  just  as  evident 
to  me  as  my  thinking,  and  simultaneously  with  sight  and 
hearing  that  which  is  heard  and  seen.  The  separation  of 
subject  and  object  can  and  must  be  merely  a  formality. 

The  Descartian  thesis  has  been  distorted  into  the  state- 
ment that  nothing  is  evident  to  man  but  his  own  sub- 
jective conception.  And  the  ideology  has  been  carried  to 
the  extreme  of  calling  the  whole  world  an  idea,  a  phantas- 
magoria. True,  Descartes  needed  God  in  order  to  be  sure 
that  his  conceptions  did  not  cheat  him. 

In  order  to  prove  that  we  no  longer  need  such  extrav- 
agant means  in  our  times,  I  shall  devote  another  chapter 
to  this  subject. 


428  THE  rOSlTlVL  OUTCOME  01-    PHILOSOPHY 


XIV 


CONTINUATION    OF   THE  DISCUSSION   ON    THE   DIFFERENCE 
BETWEEN  DOUBTFUL  AND  EVIDENT   UNDERSTANDING 

Let  us  divide  the  history  of  civihzation  into  two 
periods.  In  the  first,  the  less  civiHzed  period,  the  doubt- 
ful perceptions  predominate,  in  the  second  period  the 
evident  ones.  Our  special  investigation  of  the  correct 
way  of  evident  understanding  began  in  the  first  period  in 
which  the  doubtful  perceptions,  commonly  called  errors, 
predominated.  In  this  period,  the  gods  rule  in  heaven  and 
imagination  on  earth. 

To  get  rid  of  errors  meant  originally  to  lose  gods  and 
heaven.  The  ideal  world  was  the  cause  of  metaphysics. 
Metaphysics  which  drew  the  investigation  of  the  super- 
natural into  the  circle  of  its  activity,  did  so  for  the  pur- 
pose of  enlightening  the  human  mind.  Thus  its  problem 
was  from  the  outset  of  a  twofold  nature.  It  desires  to 
throw  light  on  the  natural  process  of  thought,  which  was 
temporarily  unbalanced  by  a  bent  for  the  supernatural, 
and  for  this  reason  it  first  loses  itself  in  the  clouds. 

While  human  reason  has  now  become  soberer,  the 
meaning  of  the  term  ''metaphysics"  has  also  been  sobered 
down.  Our  contemporaneous  metaphysicians  speak  no 
longer  of  such  transcendental  things  as  the  ancients  did. 
Present  day  metaphysics  occupies  itself  with  such  abstract 
ideas  as  the  thing  and  nothing,  being  and  coming  into  be- 
ing, matter  and  force,  truth  and  error. 

Particularly  the  investigation  of  doubtful,  erroneous, 
and  evident  or  true  understanding,  which  we  here  discuss, 
is  a  part  of  metaphysics. 

The  term  metaphysics,  then,  has  a  double  meaning, 


DOUBTFUL  AND  FA'IDENT  UNDERSTANDING 


420 


one  of  them  transcendental  and  extravagant,  the  other 
natural  and  within  sober  limits.  Our  sober  task  of  dem- 
onstrating the  positive  outcome  of  philosophy  that 
acquired  sober  methods  in  dealing  with  understanding 
also  compels  us  to  face  transcendental  metaphysics,  which 
sobers  down  in  the  course  of  time  and  develops  into  its 
opposite,  into  pure,  bare,  naked  physics. 

The  divine  has  become  human,  the  transcendental 
sober,  and  so  understanding  grows  ever  more  unequivo- 
cal and  evident  in  the  progress  of  history. 

In  order  to  become  clear  on  the  problem  of  under- 
standing, we  must  cease  to  turn  our  eyes  to  any  one  indi- 
vidual opinion,  thought,  knowledge,  or  perception.  We 
must  rather  consider  the  process  of  understanding  in  its 
entirety.  We  then  notice  the  development  from  doubt  to 
evidence,  from  errors  to  true  understanding.  At  the  same 
time  we  become  aware  how  unwise  it  was  to  entertain  such 
an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  contrast  between  truth  and 

error. 

Whoever  searches  for  true  and  evident  understanding 
will  not  find  it  in  Jerusalem,  nor  in  Jericho,  nor  in  the 
spirit ;  not  in  any  single  thing,  but  in  the  universe.  There 
the  known  emerges  from  the  unknown  so  gradually  that 
no  beginning  can  be  traced.  Understanding  comes  into 
being  and  grows,  is  partly  erroneous  and  partly  accurate, 
becomes  more  and  more  evident.  But  there  is  never  an 
absolutely  true  understanding  any  more  than  there  can  be 
an  absolutely  faulty  one.  Only  the  universe,  but  not  any 
single  thing,  is  absolute,  imperishable,  and  impregnable. 

In  order  to  accurately  define  understanding,  we  must 
separate  it  from  misunderstanding,  but  not  too  far,  not 
excessivelv,  otherwise  the  thing  becomes  extravagant, 
The  limited  formal  logic  teaches,  indeed,  that  the  same 


430 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


thing  cannot  be  affirmed  and  denied  at  the  same  time, 
affirmation  and  denial  being  contradictions.  But  such  a 
logic  is  very  narrow.  Herbs  are  not  weeds.  Weeds  are 
the  negation  of  herbs,  and  still  weeds  are  herbs.  An 
erroneous  understanding  is  a  negation  of  a  true  under- 
standing, error  is  not  truth,  and  still  it  exists  in  truth. 
There  is  no  absolute  error  any  more  than  perceptions  are 
the  truth  itself.  All  perceptions  are  and  remain  nothing 
but  symbols  or  reflections  of  truth. 

We  do  not  wish  to  confound  error  with  truth  and 
make  a  stew  of  them,  but  rather  understand  them  both. 
The  mixing  is  done  by  the  man  who  opposes  them  as  irre- 
concilable contradictions.  Let  us-  first  note  the  mistake 
committed  in  so  doing.  By  so  opposing  error  and  truth 
something  is  done  which  is  not  intended,  not  known.  The 
intention  is  to  confront  the  erroneous  understanding  with 
truth.  For  this  purpose,  error  is  assumed  to  be  the  same 
as  erroneous  understanding,  which  may  be  admitted ;  but 
true  understanding  and  truth  are  two  different  things  and 
must  be  kept  separate,  if  we  wish  to  arrive  at  clear  and 
unmistakable  results.  If  we  formulate  the  question  in  this 
way:  How  do  erroneous  and  true  understanding  differ, 
we  are  nearer  to  the  desired  clarity  by  two  solar  distances. 
We  then  find  that  error  and  understanding  do  not  exclude 
one  another,  but  are  two  species  of  the  same  genus,  two 
individuals  of  the  same  family. 

Two  times  two  is  not  alone  four ;  this  is  only  a  part 
of  the  truth ;  it  is  also  four  times  one,  or  eight  times  one- 
half,  or  one  plus  three,  or  sixteen  times  one-quarter,  etc. 
The  man  who  first  observed  that  the  sun  circled  around 
the  earth  once  a  day,  committed  a  mistake,  yet  he  made  a 
true  perception.  The  apparent  circulation  of  the  sun  in 
twenty-four  hours  around  the  earth  is  a  substantial  part 


DOUBTFUT>  AXD  EVIDENT  UNDERSTANDING 


'i:u 


of  the  understanding  which  illumines  the  relation  of  the 
motion  of  the  sun  and  of  the  earth.  No  truth  is  merely 
simple,  but  it  is  at  the  same  time  composed  of  an  infinite 
number  of  partial  truths.  The  semblance  must  not  be 
contradictorily  separated  from  truth,  in  an  extravagant 
sense,  but  is  part  of  truth,  just  as  all  errors  contribute 
toward  true  understanding.  In  so  far  as  all  perceptions 
are  limited,  they  are  errors,  partial  truths.  True  under- 
standing requires  above  all  the  backing  of  the  conscious 
recognition  that  it  is  a  limited  part  of  the  unlimited  uni- 
verse. 

The  cosmic  relation  of  the  whole  to  its  parts,  of  the 
general  to  the  special,  must  be  considered  in  order  to  get 
a  clear  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  human  understand- 
ing- 
Understanding  or  knowledge,   thinking,    perceivmg, 

reasoning,  must,  for  the  purpose  of  investigation,  not  be 
excessively  separated  from  other  phenomena.  In  a  way, 
every  object  which  is  chosen  for  special  study  is  isolated. 
In  saying,  "in  a  way,"  I  mean  that  the  separation  of  the 
objects  of  study  from  other  world  objects  must  be  con- 
sciously moderate,  not  exaggerated.  The  separation  of 
the  intellect  from  other  objects  or  subjects  when  investi- 
gating them,  must  be  accompanied  by  the  recognition 
that  such  a  separation  is  not  excessive,  but  only  formal. 
In  separating  a  board,  for  the  purpose  of  studying  its  con- 
dition, from  other  boards  or  things  and  finding  that  it  is 
black,'  I  must  still  remember  that  this  board  is  black  only 
on  account  of  its  interdependence  with  the  whole  world 
process ;  that  the  blackness  which  it  possesses  is  not  of 
its  own  making,  but  that  light,  and  eyes,  and  the  whole 
cosmic  connection  belong  to  it.  In  this  way  every  special 
perception  becomes  a  proportionate  part  in  the  chain  of 


43? 


THE   POSITIVE   OUTCmrE   OF   PTTTLOSOPIIY 


universal  perceptions,  and  this  again  a  proportionate  part 
of  the  universal  life. 

That  this  evident  universal  life  is  not  a  mere  sem- 
blance, not  a  ghost,  not  a  baseless  imagination,  but  the 
truth,  is  made  evident  to  the  thinking  man  by  his  con- 
sciousness, reason,  common  sense.  True,  he  has  been  de- 
ceived by  them,  sometimes.  But  it  requires  no  logic,  no 
syllogistic  proof,  to  know  that  they  are  telling  the  truth  in 
this  respect. 

It  is  nevertheless  important  to  give  this  proof,  because 
by  it  the  peculiar  nature  of  our  intellect  is  revealed,  of  the 
object  the  study  of  which  is  the  special  concern  of  phil- 
osophy. 

This  proof,  that  the  universe  is  the  universal  truth, 
was  first  attempted  by  philosophy  in  an  indirect  way,  by 
casting  about  in  vain  for  a  metaphysical  truth. 

The  philosopher  Kant  was  no  doubt  the  thinker  who 
confined  the  use  of  understanding  most  strictly  to  the 
domain  of  experience.  Now,  if  we  recognize  that  this 
field  is  universal,  we  become  aware  that  the  assumed  Kan- 
tian limitation  is  not  a  limitation  at  all.  The  human  mind 
is  a  universal  instrument,  the  special  productions  of  which 
all  belong  to  general  truth.  Though  we  make  a  distinc- 
tion between  the  doubtful  and  the  positive,  the  outcome  of 
philosophy  teaches  us  that  it  must  be  no  excessive  distinc- 
tion, but  must  be  backed  up  by  the  consciousness  that  all 
evidence  is  composed  of  probabilities,  of  phenomena  of 
truth,  of  parts  of  truth. 

The  thinking  understanding— this  is  the  result  of  phil- 
osophy— is  no  more  evident  than  anything  else  and  de- 
rives its  existence  not  from  itself,  but  from  the  universal 
life.  This  universal  life  from  which  thought  derives  its 
perceptions,  from  which  understanding  derives  its  enlight- 


DOUBTFUL  AND  EVIDENT  UNDERSTANDING 


4_o.. 


oo 


, 


enment,  does  not  only  exist  as  a  general  thing,  but  also 
in  the  form  of  infinitely  varied  individualities.    And  gen- 
eralization, the  relation  of  things,  their  number  and  ex- 
tension, are  no  more,  and  no  less,  infinite  than  individual- 
ization and  specialization.    Every  tree  in  the  forest,  every 
grain  of  a  pile  of  sand,  are  individual,  separate,  distinct. 
Every  particle  of  every  grain  of  sand  is  distinctly  individ- 
ual.   And  the  infinite  individualization  of  nature  goes  so 
far  that,  just  as  the  human  individual  is  different  every 
day,  every  hour,  every  moment,  so  is  the  individual  grain 
of  sand,  even  though  its  transformations  were  not  to  be- 
come noticeable  until  after  thousands  of  years,  by  accum- 
ulated  changes.     By   classifying  this  contradictory,   in- 
finitely general  and  infinitely  individual  nature  in  groups 
according  to  time  and  space,  in  classes,  genera,  families, 
species,  orders,  and  other  subdivisions,  we  are  discerning 
and  understanding. 

In  the  universe,  every  group  is  an  individual  and  every 
individual  is  a  group.  The  uniformity  of  nature  is  not 
greater  than  its  variety.  Both  of  them  are  infinite.  We 
distinguish  between  time  and  space.  Every  moment  is 
composed  of  little  moments.  The  smallest  division  of 
time  cannot  be  denominated  any  more  than  the  largest, 
just  because  there  is  no  smallest  and  no  largest  in  the  uni- 
verse, neither  in  time  nor  in  space.  Atoms  are  groups. 
As  smallest  parts  they  exist  only  in  our  thoughts  and  thus 
give  excellent  service  in  chemistry.  The  consciousness 
that  they  are  not  tangible,  but  only  mental  things,  does 
not  detract  from  their  usefulness,  but  heightens  it  still 

more. 

It  is  the  nature  of  human  intelligence  to  divide, 
classify,  group.  We  divide  the  world  into  four  cardinal 
points ;  we  also  divide  it  into  two  kingdoms,  the  kingdom 


434 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


of  the  mind  and  the  kingdom  of  nature ;  the  latter  we  agam 
subdivide  into  the  organic  and  the  inorganic,  or  perhaps 
into  the  mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  kingdoms.  In 
short,  science  seeks  to  illumine  the  universe  by  division. 
The  question  then  arises :  Which  is  the  genuine  and  true 
division  ?  Where  does  the  variety  of  science,  its  undecided 
vaccination  end,  and  when  does  understanding  become 
stable  ? 

The  reader  should  remember  that  the  things,  the 
objects  of  understanding,  are  not  fixed,  but  also  variable 
objects,  and  that  the  whole  universe  is  moving,  progress- 
ing; that  especially  the  human  mind  becomes  more  and 
more  affluent  from  century  to  century,  from  year  to  year, 
and  that  for  this  reason  science  is  not  alone  compelled  to 
fix  things,  but  also  to  remain  in  flow.  The  fixed  and  the 
fluid  are  not  so  widely  separated  in  science  any  more,  that 
the  evidence  could  not  be  evident  and  yet  at  the  same  time 
a  little  doubtful. 

Man  and  his  understanding  are  progressive,  and  for 
this  reason  he  must  progress  by  experience  in  his  classifi- 
cations, conceptions,  and  sciences. 

The  fixed,  impregnable,  socalled  apodictical  facts  are 
nothing  but  tautologies,  if  seen  at  close  range.  After  it 
has  become  common  usage  to  call  only  heavy  and  tangi- 
ble things  bodies,  it  is  an  apodictical  fact  that  all  bodies 
are  heavy  and  tangible.  If  the  conceptions  of  vapor, 
water  and  ice  are  restricted  by  common  usage  and  by 
science  to  the  three  stages  of  aggregation  of  the  same 
substance,  then  we  need  not  wonder  at  our  firm  assur- 
ance that  the  water  will  ^Iways  remain  fluid  in  all  time 
to  come,  also  above  the'stars.  ^^This  signifies  nothin^:^ 
more  than  that  we  conceive  of  the  things  as  solid  which 
we  call  solid,  and  of  those_aslfluid_which  we  call  fluid, 


DOUBTFUL  AND  EVIDENT  UNDERSTANDING 


435 


but  it  does  not  cnange  the  fact  that  our  faculty  of  under- 
standing or  perceiving  gives  us  only  an  approximate  pic- 
ture of  natural  processes,  in  which  the  solid  and  the  fluid 
are  neither  wholly  opposed  nor  different,  but  where  the 
positive  and  the  negative  gradually  flow  into  one  an- 
other. 

The  philosophers  produced  a  very  good  conception 
of  understanding  by  developing  the  concept  of  truth 
step  by  step  and  finally  coming  to  quite  exact  results. 
But  this  "quite  exact"  must  only  be  accepted  in  a  reason- 
able sense,  not  in  an  extravagant  one.  Truth  as  the  in- 
finite, as  the  sum  total  of  all  things  and  qualities,  is  "in 
itself"  quite  right,  but  it  cannot  be  accurately  reproduced, 
not  even  by  means  of  the  mind,  of  reason,  or  understand- 
ing. The  means  is  smaller  than  the  purpose,  is  subordi- 
nate to  purpose.  So  is  our  faculty  of  understanding  only 
a  subordinate  servant  of  truth,  of  the  universe.  The  lat- 
ter is  absolutely  evident,  true,  indubitable,  and  positive. 
It  does  not  vitiate  the  sublimity  of  this  world  in  the  least 
that  it  is  veiled  by  appearances,  by  error,  by  untruth. 
On  the  contrary.  Without  sin  there  is  no  virtue,  and 
without  error  there  is  no  understanding,  no  truth.  The 
negative,  the  weakness,  the  sin  and  error,  are  overcome, 
and  thereby  truth  shines  in  full  splendor.  The  universe, 
the  general  truth,  is  a  progressive  thing.  It  is  absolute, 
but  not  at  any  fixed  time  or  place,  but  only  in  the  com- 
bined unity  of  all  time  and  space. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  this  is  too  much  for  our  in- 
tellect, that  we  cannot  understand  this.  It  is  true  that 
we  cannot  squeeze  this  into  any  of  our  categories,  of  our 
fundamental  conceptions,  unless  we  place  the  category  of 
illimited  and  indeterminable  and  infinite  truth  at  the  be- 
ginning of  them.    If  that  is  not  quite  clear  and  plain,  it 


436 


THE   POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


should  serve  to  teach  us  that  the  category  of  clear  and 
plain  human  understanding  is  destined  to  recognize  its 
function  as  a  subordinate  factor  of  nature. 

Such  an  understanding  of  understanding,  -such  a 
higher  consciousness  standing  ever  behind  us,  promotes 
a  meek  pride  or  a  proud  meekness  which  is  well  distin- 
guished from  the  mental  poverty  of  theologians,  from 
the  transcendental  distinction  between  God  and  the 
world,  between  creator  and  creature.  To  us  the  perish- 
able soul  is  not  a  narrow-minded  servant  for  whom  the 
plans  of  the  imperishable  monster  soul  are  incomprehen- 
sible. A  philosophically  educated  and  self-understanding 
mind  is  a  part  of  absolute  nature.  This  mind  is  not  only 
a  limited  human  mind,  but  the  mind  of  the  infinite  eter- 
nal, omnipotent  universe  from  which  it  derived  the 
faculty  of  knowing  everything  knowable.  But  when  this 
mind  demands  the  ability  to  absolutely  know  everything, 
it  demands  that  knowledge  should  be  everything,  it  be- 
comes transcendental  and  insolent,  it  misconceives  the 
relation  of  science  to  infinity.  The  latter  is  more  than 
science,  it  is  the  object  of  science. 


XV 


CONCLUSION 


The  philosopher  Herbart  declares :  "If  the  meaning 
of  a  word  were  determined  by  the  use  to  which  it  is  put 
by  this  or  that  person,  then  the  term  metaphysics  would 
be  ambiguous  and  scarcely  comprehensible.  If  one 
wishes  to  know  what  meaning  of  this  term  has  been 


CONCLUSION 


437 


handed  down  to  us  by  tradition,  he  should  read  the 
ancient  metaphysicians  and  their  followers,  from  Aris- 
totle to  Wolff  and  his  school.  It  will  then  be  found  that 
the  concepts  of  being,  of  its  quality,  of  cause  and  effect, 
of  space  and  time,  have  been  the  objects  of  this  science 
everywhere  .  .  .  that  it  has  been  attempted  to  analyze 
them  logically  and  that  this  has  led  to  all  sorts  of  dis- 
putes. These  disputes  .  .  .  determined  the  concept  of 
metaphysics." 

Such  a  declaration  is  right  enough  to  furnish,  by 
the  help  of  a  little  criticism  on  our  part,  a  sketch  of  the 
positive  outcome  of  philosophy. 

Metaphysics  has  always  been  the  principal  part  of 
philosophy.  In  the  first  sentence  of  his  "Handbook  for 
the  Elements  o'f  Philosophy,"  Herbart  defines  philosophy 
as  the  ''analysis  of  ideas."  According  to  this,  meta- 
physics would  have  to  analyze  the  special  ideas  of  being, 
etc.  Now  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  idea  of  being 
is  not  so  much  a  special  concept  as  the  general  idea  which 
comprises  all  ideas  and  all  things.  Everything  belongs 
to  being,  and  to  understand  that  is  too  much  for  meta- 
physics. Hence  it  came  into  difficulties.  Now  our 
authority  has  just  explained  to  us  that  the  concept  ot 
metaphysics  was  not  so  much  determined  by  the  work  it 
accomplished  as  by  disputes.  It  did  not  work,  but  only 
made  the  logical  attempt  to  analyze  the  concept  of  being. 
In  so  doing  it  led  to  disputes  and  did  not  distinguish  itselt 
very  much  as  a  science.  The  latter,  Kant  has  told  us  in 
his  preface  to  his  ''Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  is  recog- 
nized by  its  agreements,  not  by  its  disputes. 

The  metaphysical  disputes  were  overcome  by  philo- 
sophic science,  which  is  the  study  of  ideas  or  understand- 
ing, by  arriving  at  a  clear  and  plain  theory  of  under- 


438 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


Standing,  the  demonstration  of  which   I  have  here  at- 
tempted. 

The  faculty  of  understanding  had  been  transmitted 
to  us  by  our  superstitious  ancestors  as  a  thing  of  another 
world.  But  the  illusion  of  another  world  is  a  metaphysi- 
cal one  and  led  to  disputes  about  the  idea  of  being. 

The  positive  outcome  of  philosophy  assures  us  and 
demonstrates  that  there  is  only  one  world,  that  this  world 
is  the  essence  of  all  being,  that  there  are  many  modes  of 
being,  but  that  they  all  belong  to  the  same  common 
nature.  Thus  philosophy  has  unified  the  concept  of  being 
and  overcome  metaphysics  and  its  disputes. 

Universal  being  has  only  one  quality,  the  natural  one 
of  general  existence.  At  the  same  time  this  quality  is 
the  essence  of  all  special  qualities.  Just  as  the  concept 
of  herbs  includes  all  herbs,  even  weeds,  so  the  concept 
of  being  comprises  not  only  that  which  is,  but  also  that 
which  is  not,  which  was  once  upon  a  time  and  which  will 
be  in  the  future. 

To  free  the  concept  of  being  from  its  metaphysical 
disputes,  is  a  very  difficult  thing  for  those  who  attribute 
an  extravagant  meaning  to  the  first  principle  of  logic 
wh^ch  says:  "Any  subject  can  have  only  one  of  two 
radically  different  predicates,  because  it  cannot  be  at  the 
same  time  A  and  not-A." 

All  previous  science  of  understanding  has  really  re- 
volved around  this  statement.  It  is  based  on  something 
plausible,  but  still  more  on  misunderstanding.  Only 
when  we  have  become  aware  of  what  has  finally  been  the 
outcome  of  the  science  of  understanding,  only  when  this 
str^ement  is  backed  up  by  the  positive  product  of  philoso- 
phy, does  this  stubbornly  maintained  and  much  contested 
statement  receive  a  lasting  value  by  its  just  modification. 


CONCLUSION 


439 


In  the  first  place,  a  ''subject"  is  not  a  fixed,  but  a 
variable  concept.  In  the  last  analysis,  as  we  have  suf- 
ficiently explained  in  this  work,  there  is  only  one  sole 
universal  subject  which  is  nowhere  radically  different. 

The  first  principle  of  the  old  and  tried  Aristotlean 
logic  tells  us  that  a  man,  a  subject,  who  is  lame  cannot 
move  about  with  alacrity.  But  I  have  a  friend  who  was 
totally  lame  and  who  today  jumps  about  briskly ;  there  is 
no  contradiction  in  this.  But  if  I  tell  another  man  about 
my  lame  friend  and  in  the  course  of  my  story  have  this 
lame  subject  all  of  a  sudden  jumping  over  chairs  and 
tables,  then  such  a  thing  is  inconceivable  and  I  contradict 
myself.  Such  a  contradiction  is  a  violation  of  all  logic, 
but  not  because  agility  and  lameness  are  totally  different 
predicates  which  cannot  be  attributed  to  the  same  sub- 
ject, nor  because  the  contradiction  cannot  exist.  Being 
is  full  of  contradictions,  but  they  are  not  simultaneous  or 
without  mediation.  A  logical  speech  or  story  must  not 
forget  to  mediate.  By  mediation,  all  contradictions  are 
solved.    And  this  is  the  outcome  of  philosophy. 

In  discordant  metaphysics,  being  and  not  being  are 
irreconcilable  and  mutually  exclusive  contradictions. 
Metaphysics  is  in  doubt  whether  this  common  existence 
is  real  or  only  apparent,  or  whether  there  is  not  some- 
where in  a  heaven  above  the  clouds  an  entirely  different 
life.  But  philosophy  is  now  fully  aware  that  even  the 
most  fictitious  being  is  so  positively  real  that  any  nega- 
tion which  appearances  may  attribute  to  it  is  outclassed 
by  affirmation  to  the  utter  discomfiture  of  the  former. 
Being  and  its  affirmation  is  absolute,  negation  and  not 
being  are  only  relative.  Being  is  everywhere  and  always 
dominant,  so  that  there  is  no  non-existence.  Though  we 
may  say  that  this  or  that  is  nothing,  yet  we  must  remain 


440 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF   PHILOSOPHY 


conscious  that  anything  we  may  call  nothing  is  still 
something  very  positive.  There  cannot  be  any  ignorance 
which  does  not  at  least  know  a  little.  There  is  no  evil 
which  cannot  be  transformed  into  good.  The  things  that 
have  been,  will  be,  and  are,  all  of  them  are.  There  is 
no  non-existence.  It  is  at  least  a  word,  though  it  does 
not  convey  any  meaning.  The  world  and  our  language 
are  of  so  positive  a  character  that  even  a  meaningless 
word  still  means  something.  Nothing  cannot  be  ex- 
pressed. 

The  superstition  of  another  ''true"  world  which  floats 
above  this  world  of  phenomena  or  is  secretly  hidden 
behind  it  has  so  vitiated  logic  that  it  is  now  difficult  to 
remove  the  discordant  metaphysical  "concept  of  being" 
from  the  human  mind.  The  belief  in  something  abso- 
lutely different  will  not  easily  disappear.  It  is  especially 
difficult  to  demonstrate  that  conceived  things  are  of  the 
same  nature  as  real  things,  that  both  of  them  really  be- 
long to  true  nature. 

Conceived  things  are  pictures,  real  pictures,  pictures 
of  reality.  All  the  limbs  of  an  imaginary  dragon  are 
copied  from  nature.  Such  creations  of  imagination  are 
distinguished  from  truths  only  by  their  fanciful  composi- 
tion. To  connect  nature  and  human  life  according  to  the 
given  order,  that  is  the  whole  function  of  understanding. 
Knowing,  thinking,  understanding,  explaining,  has  not, 
and  cannot  have,  any  other  function  but  that  of  describ- 
ing the  processes  of  experience  by  division  or  classifica- 
tion. The  famous  scientist  Haeckel  may  call  this  con- 
temptuously "museum  zoolog\'"  and  "licrbarium  bot- 
any," but  he  simply  shows  that  he  has  not  grasped  the 
secret  of  the  intellect,  but  still  wonders  at  it  in  a  meta- 
physical way,  the  same  as  his  predecessors. 


CONCLUSION 


441 


What  Darwin  ascertained  about  the  "origin  of  spe- 
cies" and  about  the  transitions  and  evolutions  in  organic 
life  is  a  very  valuable  expansion  of  museum  zoology. 
Whoever  expects  anything  else  from  the  nature  of  intel- 
lectual faculties,  shows  that  he  is  not  familiar  with  the 
outcome  of  philosophy,  that  he  has  not  emancipated  him- 
self from  the  vain  wondering  and  its  accompanying  edifi- 
cation, which  the  wonder  of  human  intelligence  caused 
to  primitive  ignorance. 

Understanding  has  hitherto  been  in  error  about  itself 
and  was,  therefore,  inadequately  equipped  for  the  task  of 
giving  a  true  account  of  its  relatives,  of  the  phenomena 
of  nature  and  life.  Nevertheless  it  has  acquired  training 
in  the  course  of  culture  and  has  progressively  accom- 
plished better  things.  Its  errors  have  never  been  value- 
less, and  its  truths  will  never  be  sufficient.  That  this  is 
so,  is  not  due  to  the  defective  condition  of  our  intelligence, 
but  to  the  inexhaustibleness  of  being,  the  indescribable 

wealth  of  nature. 

The  self-conscious,  philosophically  trained  under- 
standing and  intelligence  has  now  the  means  of  knowing 
that  the  accuracy  of  all  investigation  is  limited,  that  for 
this  reason  all  its  future  results  will  be  affected  by  error. 
But  a  science  which  is  backed  up  by  such  an  enlightened 
understanding,  is  reconciled  to  its  limitations  and  trans- 
forms them  into  a  hall  of  glory.  Self-conscious  limita- 
tion is  aware  of  its  partnership  in  the  absolute  perfection 

of  the  universe. 

The  self-conscious  intellect  improved  by  the  positive 
product  of  philosophy  knows  that  it  can  understand,  de- 
scribe, the  whole  world  in  a  natural,  sensible  way.  There 
is  nothing  that  can  -esist  it.  But  in  the  sense  of  a  tran- 
scendental metaphysics,  our  understanding  is  not  worthy 


U2 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOME  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


of  that  name.    In  return,  this  metaphysics  is  pure  vagary 

m  the  eyes  of  critical  reason. 

Taking  its  departure  from  fantastical  ideals,  from 
contradictions,  especially  between  being  and  not  beino- 
metaphysics  has  gradually  transformed  itself  in  the 
course  of  civilization  and  become  philosophy,  which  in 
Its  turn  has  progressed  step  by  step  the  same  as  all  other 
science. 

Philosophy  was  at  first  impelled  bv  the  nebulous  de- 
sire for  universal  world  wisdom  and  has  finally  assumed 
the  form  of  a  lucid  special  investigation  of  the  theory  of 
understanding. 

This  theory  is  part,  and  the  most  essential  part  at 
that,  of  psychology  or  the  science  of  the  soul.     Modern 
psychologists  have  at  least  devined,  if  not  recognized, 
that  the  human  soul  is  not  a  metaphysical  thing,  but  a 
phenomenon.     Like  Professor  Haeckel,  thev  also  com- 
plain about  the  dead  classification  in  their  specialty.    The 
human  soul  is  presented  to  them  as  a  multitude  of  facul- 
ties.    There  is  the  faculty  of  understanding,  of  feeling, 
of  perceiving,  etc.,  without  number  and  end.    But  how  is 
life  infused  into  them  ?    Where  is  the  consistent  connec- 
tion? 

There  is,  for  instance,  the  conception  and  feeling  of 
beauty  in  the  human  soul.  The  beautiful  again  is  divided 
into  the  artistically  beautiful  and  the  ethically  beautiful, 
and  each  of  these  into  other  subdivisions.'  There  is' 
beside  the  beautiful  also  the  pretty,  the  charming,  the 
graceful,  the  dignified,  the  noble,  the  solemn,  the  splen- 
did, the  pathetic,  the  touching.  Psychology  also  treats  of 
the  ridiculous,  of  the  joke,  the  wit,  the  satire,  the  irony, 
the  humor,  of  a  thousand  subtleties  and  distinctions,  the 


CONCLUSION 


443 


ideological  separation  of  which  it  attempts  just  as  do 
botany,  zoology,  and  every  other  sience  in  their  field. 

To  all  of  them,  being  is  the  object  of  study.  What 
is  the  use  of  metaphysics  under  these  circumstances? 
Only  because  it  had  in  mind  a  different  being,  a  trans- 
cendental one,  could  it  induce  Kant  to  sum  up  all  his 
studies  in  the  question :   How  is  metaphysics  possible  as 

a  science? 

It  is  the  merit  of  philosophy  to  have  demonstrated 
that  metaphysics  is  possible  only  as  fantastical  specula- 
tion. 

It  is  the  business  of  metaphysics  to  treat  being  tran- 
scendentally.  It  is  the  business  of  special  sciences  to 
classify  being  after  the  manner  of  herbarium  botany. 
Classical  order  is  already  present  in  the  vegetable  king- 
dom, otherwise  no  specialist  in  botany  could  classify  it. 

But  the  objective  arrangement  of  the  vegetable  king- 
dom in  infinitely  more  multiform  than  the  subjective  ar- 
rangement of  botany.  The  latter  is  always  excellent,  if 
it  corresponds  to  the  scientific  progress  of  its  period.  Who- 
ever is  looking  for  absolute  botany  or  psychology,  or  for 
any  other  absolute  science,  misunderstands  the  univer- 
sally natural  character  of  the  absolute  as  well  as  the 
relative  special  character  of  the  human  faculty  of  under- 
standing. 

Philosophy  familiar  with  its  historical  achievement 
understands  being  as  the  infinite  material  of  life  and 
science  which  is  taken  up  by  the  special  sciences  and 
classified  by  them.  It  teaches  the  specialists  to  remem- 
ber throughout  all  their  classifications  according  to  de- 
l)artmcnts\nd  concepts  that  all  specialties  are  connected 
!,y  life  and  not  so  separated  in  life  as  they  are  in  science, 
but  that  they  are  flowing  and  passing  into  one  another. 


iU 


THE  POSITIVE  OUTCOilE  OF  i'HILOSOPHY 


in  til  rule      Th        1  !  ""'^"''''"'^'"^  '^"^"^  '^"'"^^^ 
ar    !r       K  r     ,°"  ''''"  '"''^P'^  ^'^''''^  «"d  subdivide  and 
farther  subd.y.de  to  the  utmost  the  universal  concept 
the  concept  of  the  universe,  but  thou  shalt  be  ba  ked  u ,' 

form    itv°bv'°"v  r  *''  '''^  """"'''  classification  is 
forma  ty  by  which  man  seeks  for  the  sake  of  his  in 
forma  .on  to  register  and  to  place  his  experience    thou 

';:  ivdv  '"°"  "r"  ^^^-^^^  °^  ^^y  '•'-'y  o  "rt! 

.ressively  miprove  the  experience  acquired  by  tlivself 
.n  the  course  of  time,  by  modifying  th.v  dassific'atior 
Thmgs  are  ideas,  ideas  are  names,  and  things   idea, 
and  names  are  subject  to  continuous  perfect!.^  '  ' 

r...     >       '"°"°"    ^"'^    '"°^'^'    ^'^bility    constitute    the 


THE  END 


) 


